Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 29/98) - When Yellowknife grew from a town to a city, in 1967, the emphasis shifted from mining to the office, from the frontier to the rat race.

An influx of government office workers spurred restaurants, bars, computer stores, fitness clubs, a golf course. The frontier spirit that fed and founded the town for four decades was done and gone.

Well, almost.

That spirit lives on in the people who were a part of that time. Now in their 50s, 60s and 70s, the people who were around when Yellowknife was just a town are an entirely different breed than their white-collared successors.

Knud Rasmussen, 57, arrived here in the spring of 1959, "green like you wouldn't believe."

An 18-year-old from Copenhagen, he knew little English and even less about what would become his life's work, mining.

"I'd never seen anything like it," says Rasmussen, who spent a month working on a farm in Alberta before coming North.

"It was a real adventure for a young fellow," he says. "I was born in the city and I didn't like it much, so I wanted to be a Danish farmer. Then I heard about gold mining and I decided to come to Yellowknife."

Rasmussen met the challenges the new life posed for him. He started as a laborer then moved on to spend 10 years underground at Giant Mine.

He saved enough money to do some small-scale mining of his own and made enough at that to get into the construction and blasting business.

But Rasmussen emphasized he did not do it on his own.

"My life, which has been a series of ups and downs, has really been shaped by other people," Rasmussen said. "That's what shapes a guy. That's what makes a guy successful -- it's a combination of the people you associate with. They're the real story, people like Jan Stirling, Barb Bromley, Peter Bromley, the Weavers, the list goes on and on."

One of the first people he met when he arrived in Yellowknife was Martin Bode, a fellow Dane. Bode ran a market garden near Giant Mine, and had worked underground at Port Radium, where all holes drilled for blasting the mine were hand drilled.

"The next people I met were the Weavers, Bruce and Irma Weaver and about half a dozen kids, who had a store in Old Town."

Another couple that helped the young Rasmussen get a start were Barb and Peter Bromley, who hired Rasmussen as a laborer.

"In the summer, when it was really hot out, Barb would come out with a jug of cold juice for me," recalls Rasmussen. "She had the patience to be friendly, talk to me. I hardly knew any English at the time."

Those green years were the beginning of a long, sometimes painful learning curve.

For the last 40 years, since starting at Giant Mine, Rasmussen has been drilling, blasting, crushing and moving rock and ore. Most of his work has been done during frigid Northern winters.

As arduous as it was, working night and day drilling and blasting at remote sites remains one of the joys of Rasmussen's life.

He recalls a job this past winter, blasting a bulk sample at the Windspear diamond project near Lac de Gras. He refers to it as a "clean" job, one where there was no quibbling about payment at the end of it, no weak links in the team he had along with him.

Working with Rasmussen were Bob Carroll, Dave Nickerson, Raymond Essery, Alex Debogorski and Raymond Velma. "These are old friends," says Rasmussen. "Through the work they become friends. They did a very difficult job, under harsh conditions."

Rasmussen says Essery served as an example to the rest.

"If it wasn't for Raymond, we never would have got it all done in that cold. He took more of it than the rest of us.

"And the success was the job got done on time, the company was happy, and we never had a single breakdown in a whole winter's work."

Rasmussen notes with pride that the equipment they worked with was old, but well-maintained. The oldest was a John Deer bulldozer that was new four decades ago.

And though he says he's ready to retire, Rasmussen also says he would be back there again this winter if he could get the same crew for the same job.

Rasmussen made his switch from mining to blasting and construction under the tutelage of the late Curly McDonald, who used to do all the blasting in town.

McDonald proved a good teacher. Rasmussen notes that he has never had an insurance claim, in spite of doing plenty of work in the city.

"Blasting in town is serious work," he said. "You are on the line when you do that. You've got to do the job as if you're the only one who's doing it. You don't pass responsibility on to another guy."