HAY RIVER - Elise Marie really wants to be a carpenter, but that goal has been put on hold because of the recession.

Elise Marie is a Hay River bookkeeper who also wants to be a carpenter. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

In the meantime, the Hay River woman is paying the bills with her part-time career as a bookkeeper.

However, she is like most people and doesn't really enjoy bookkeeping.

"It's really tedious," she said. "You just sit at a computer counting someone else's money."

Despite that, Marie said she is really good at bookkeeping, which is symbolized by the name of her home-based business – Arctic Tern Accounting.

She chose that name because she is a birdwatcher and was impressed by the Arctic tern's skill in hovering and diving for fish.

"I thought that was a good symbol," she said, adding she is also fast and accurate as a bookkeeper. Marie launched Arctic Tern Accounting in March.

Last month, she began advertising for clients in the Hay River area, focusing on self-employed trades people.

She hopes to eventually have 10 or 12 clients in Hay River, where she has lived for more than five years. She moved to the community from Alberta.

Those new clients would be in addition to the three she has had for five years in Alberta's Athabasca County.

"They're a good type of clients for me in that they screw up their books constantly," she said, explaining that creates more work for her in straightening out financial records.

Instead of a person trying to keep their own records, she said it would be better if they simply put all documents in a box and bring them to a bookkeeper.

Marie is not a certified general accountant.

"I don't do what they do," she said. "I do bookkeeping."

Among other things, she can do financial statements, tax returns and financial projections, but doesn't do audits.

In the past, she worked at an accounting firm for three years and as a bookkeeper for a company for another year.

That experience and her work with her Alberta clients give her about nine years experience in all as a bookkeeper.

When she quit working full-time as a bookkeeper in 2004, she became a transport truck driver for about four years, and worked as a carpenter's helper over the summer.

She also studied commerce through the online Athabasca University and is one course from earning a certificate in accounting.

Marie has wanted to become a carpenter since she was 14, but she went to university instead at the urging of her parents. In late 2008, she took a 12-week pre-employment carpentry course at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary.

However, just before she finished the course, the recession hit and delayed her plans of working as an apprentice carpenter in Alberta's oilsands development.

However, her goal is still to become a carpenter.

"In a roundabout way I'm getting to where I wanted to be all along," she said.

She will remain a part-time bookkeeper when the economy picks up and she returns to pursuing her goal of becoming a carpenter.

Marie is planning to offer an eight-week course in basic accounting for trades people at the Hay River Community Learning Centre of Aurora College.

The course, which is set to begin on Oct. 27, requires a minimum of seven participants to go ahead. The registration deadline is Oct. 21.

Marie said the course will show trades people how to do the basics of bookkeeping and when to get help.