SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - It was opened, they came, now only one question remains. Was it worth it?

MlAs, though optimistic, are taking a wait-and-see attitude with Northern House, the $1.6 million property rental shared between the three northern territories to boost the North's profile during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver last month.

People certainly came. More than 170,000 visitors from all over the world stopped to check out northern exhibits at Northern House since it opened its doors Jan. 15. The ground level pavilion at 602 West Hastings Street will remain open for another month.

Two Yellowknife MLAs who visited Northern House said time will tell if the initiative was a good investment.

Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro was one of the six MLAs who visited the pavilion during the Olympics Feb. 19 to 22.

"I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really well done. I thought that the presentation, the exhibits and so on were excellent. A little bit out of the ordinary," she said.

Bisaro said she was concerned the territorial government spent too much money on the Olympics ­ $2.4 million. She previously told Yellowknifer she was heading to the Olympics as it was an excellent opportunity for her to promote the NWT.

"Without any data to back it up, it probably was money well-spent," she said. "With the exposure that we got, yes I think that part of it (Northern House) was certainly well worth it."

Kam Lake MLA David Ramsay visited the pavilion at is grand opening before the games.

"I was very impressed with it," he said. "To me, that's what we're trying to do is give people a glimpse into life in the North and that was accomplished very well by our continued presence there until April."

He added it's too early to tell what kind of benefit the territory will gain from the pavilion.

"Whether or not we'll get returns off of that, that's still yet to be seen but I think overall, it was a good investment," he said. "I'd rather make the investment and let people be critical of that than not do it and people criticize you for not doing something."

The pavilion is open through the Paralympic Games until April 18.

As the director of tourism and parks for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, David Hastings is the GNWT's lead on Northern House. He said the department budgeted about $1.3 million to pay its share of the pavilion as well as a program that brought 10 NWT visual artists to Vancouver for two weeks during the Games.

On particularly busy days during the Olympics, staff saw upwards of 8,000 visitors, most of them from British Columbia.

"Our numbers did die down to about 1,000 a day, but now during the Paralympics we're back up to between 3,000 and 4,000 a day," Hastings said.

"We had sometimes lineups three blocks long to get in and see the house, just overwhelming media coverage in Vancouver saying just how popular our pavilion was and media outlets like CTV were broadcasting that we were the surprise success of the Games."

It's too early to tell how the Northern House exhibits will affect tourism in the territory, Hastings said, but retail sales alone up to mid-March account for about $160,000 in revenue.

"Our strategy from the very beginning was that having the Olympics in Canada and in particular British Columbia, is relatively speaking like having the Olympics in your backyard. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and when else is the Northwest Territories, for a relatively small budget, going to be able to have an audience that large?" he said.

"We were down there, we were aggressive, we were the first ones open. We designed this house to showcase how truly unique the North is through our culture, our history, our future and all of our stories and it paid off. We were heard. We were noticed amongst the crowds."

-With files from Tim Edwards

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