Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 10/00) - Piece by piece, remnants of the city's history have been travelling south over the winter.

The migration has been part of the city-ordered cleanup of Rocking Horse Ranch, located just beyond the golf course along Highway 3.

Two men who have been here since about the time Yellowknife began, Johnny Rocher and Marcel Bourget, are moving their stuff to property Bourget owns outside of Edmonton.

Earlier this month Bourget showed off part of the latest load, which includes part of a washing machine (the rest is somewhere else on the farm) owned by Betty Stevens, a marine engine used to push goods from Yellowknife to the Ptarmigan mine warf, and a buzz saws used to cut firewood at the Discovery and Akaitcho mines.

"I bought it from John Dennison," said Bourget, referring to the buzz saw from Discovery. Dennison, and Bourget himself, was an early builder of ice roads to mines such as Discovery.

Bourget was neighbours on School Draw Ave. with Betty and Jack Stevens.

He got the washer and the marine motor from them in return for moving a shack off their property. (Bourget got the shack too, which he used when cutting firewood in the bush.)

"Prior to that, I think (the motor) belonged to Lee Hanson," said Bourget. "It was used in the late '30s and early '40s."

Bourget said he has moved about three-quarters of the equipment and material he had stored on the property.

The two old-timers crossed swords with the city last year when it refused to renew Rocher's lease for the property. He has held the lease since 1987. The land was to be used for a game farm.

Instead it became a storage area for stuff salvaged, bought and saved by Bourget and Rocher.

The men contend that much of the material at the ranch is representative of Yellowknife's history and should stay here.

After calling for the two to clean up the property, the city decided not to renew the lease, saying the property was an unsightly introduction to Yellowknife for visitors.