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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Adlair Aviation Ltd. hangar was turned into a den of nostalgia as more than 350 veteran Yellowknifers met to share stories of friends and good times on Saturday evening.

Donna Smith, left, Leslie Goit and Vicki Kook caught up and exchanged stories at the "25 years or longer" party at the Adlair Aviation Ltd. hangar on Saturday evening. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo

The party, officially dubbed the "25 years or longer Yellowknifers" party, was put on by a group of dedicated, close-knit women dubbed the Fun Girls. In order to attend, guests had to have lived in Yellowknife for more than 25 years.

While the event didn't sell out this year as it has the four previous years, organizer Mickey Brown said everyone had a good time.

"It was awesome, we got lots of compliments on how everything was running and on the prizes," Brown told Yellowknifer on Monday.

The door prizes included gift certificates from businesses such as Weaver and Devore, Flowers North, Northern Flair and others.

Morgan Gebauer and her sister Pauline Michelin held a silent auction to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They raised more than $3,000 and it was their first time fundraising at the party.

"It exceeded our expectations," said Gebauer. "The support of Yellowknife is overwhelming."

Other Yellowknifers present included Leslie Goit, who moved to Yellowknife 38 years ago when her Canadian Forces father was transferred from Fairfax, Virginia. Goit said she was nine years old at the time of the move, and that she loved growing up in Yellowknife.

"One of the things I remember most about Yellowknife is how easy it was to be a kid here," she said.

There was no McDonald's when she was growing up and she recalls bringing the Happy Meal containers back from trips to the south, and all of her school friends being impressed. She said she's still close with many of the friends she made in Grade 4.

"Yellowknife bonds you forever," she said.

Donna Smith was sitting at Goit's table and agreed with her, saying it was the people who kept her here when she moved to the North on a whim from Kelowna B.C. in 1976.

"I just went eeny-meeny-miny-moe on a map and picked Yellowknife," she said, laughing.

Vicki Kook, also at the table that evening, said her arrival in Yellowknife was much different.

"My mom moved us here when I was 15 from the big city," she said, meaning Oshawa, Ont., where she was born.

"I wanted to cry and I said to my mother, 'What have you done to me?!'," she laughed. "But then once I started to meet kids at my school, it was the people that made me want to stay."

Kook said Yellowknife has changed over the years, and the other ladies at the table agreed.

"It used to be that you saw the same people every day, you knew their faces even if you didn't know them," Kook said. "Now that's different."

Ken Hall, who was born in Yellowknife at the Red Cross hospital in 1956, also said the city has changed.

"You used to know everybody here, but now not so much. It's much busier," he said. "And I don't mean the city itself, I mean people are busier with their own lives. We don't talk to other people like we used to."

Aside from that, Hall was full of praise for his hometown.

"Yellowknife has the sense of adventure and the mystery of the North that attracts people," he said. "There's also so much to do here."

Hall's parents worked and met at Giant Mine, coincidentally where he met his own wife Jeanette - they've been married 33 years.

He grew up at the Giant Mine site while his parents worked there, and said it was a "fantastic place to grow up." He also remembered when the government moved in and made Yellowknife the capital in 1967, an event that changed the city forever, he said.

"The government brought more stability because it was at a time when, if the mines closed, Yellowknife would have become a ghost town," he said.

Long-time Yellowknifers occasionally have it said to them that Yellowknife is cliquey, according to Hall, but he doesn't believe that's true. He said the city is always welcoming to newcomers.

"Yellowknife attracts a certain type of person," he said. "They're outgoing, and adventurous."

In regard to the low attendance - organizers were hoping to sell out the 500 tickets - Brown said she plans to advertise next year's event more and was also considering suggestions that the Fun Girls throw a party for newcomers as well as old-timers.

"What I'm thinking of is we used to have freeze-up and break-up parties way back, so we'll probably call this our freeze-up party and have another in the spring for breakup if everybody is agreeable," she said.

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