SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Its building may not feature wood panelling anymore but Scotiabank is celebrating 50 years of being in Yellowknife this week.

Branch manager A. Wayne Taylor and assistant branch manager T. A. Douglas stand in front of the new branch of Scotiabank in Yellowknife in 1965. The photo was published in an edition of Scotiabanker, the bank's internal publication. - photo courtesy of Scotiabank

Former branch manager Joseph Latremouille said even during his eight years running the place he saw a shift in who was moving to town and the kinds of customers coming in.

"It really started to grow," he said of the years between 1998 and 2006. "Since then I think the growth has kind of slowed and softened a little bit."

Latremouille said it was the era of the Giant and Con gold mines ending and the diamond mines were just starting that was a big reason for the change. That influx of new workers also led to a to more saving and investing from borrowing.

"Part of that, I think, is people were staying there for longer," he said. "When I was a kid, people would go there for two years and leave. There were lots of people who would come in to do transactions but their bank accounts, mortgages and everything were all done in Edmonton and Ottawa because they knew they were leaving soon."

Latremouille actually spent five years of his childhood growing up in Yellowknife, and graduated from Sir John Franklin High School. He said when he returned he still had family here and half of his graduating class were still residents.

Latremouille said at the time it was a challenge getting people at the company's head office in Toronto to understand how things worked and what the market was like in Yellowknife.

"Because nobody had ever been there," he said. "Once you get past those hurdles, it was just the same client base as any other branch."

Latremouille said when he was there the branch benefited from lots of businesses from the smaller communities and all the new aviation companies. He also noticed how customers who stayed in Yellowknife for the long haul were better off.

"They all had tremendous jobs compared to people down south who had bounced around a bit," he said. "They'd saved more and had acquired better assets."

Latremouille said even during his time staffing was a major issue.

"Turnover and retention," he said. "We couldn't compete with government wages." he said, noting it was the same experience he had running branches in Canmore and Banff, Alta. "It's really expensive in all of these places."

Aside from himself and the person who took over after him Latremouille said the average tenure of most branch managers was two years due to the length of the contract.

"I was the first person who applied for the job," he said. "Before that they had to go find someone to go there. Told the bank I wanted to go there. I remember that conversation to this day."

The bank's current branch manager, Justin Lalonde, said that kind of brand loyalty extended to the other side of the counter with some customers of the Yellowknife branch who have been clients for more than 30 or even 40 years.

"We're really a proud member of this community," he said.

As part of the anniversary for the 1965 branch opening, Scotiabank is hosting a free public skate at the Shorty Brown arena today from 6 to 7:15 p.m.

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