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Pioneer child
Woman returns to modern Yellowknife

Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 09/00) - As she and her daughter-in-law drove into town last month, Patricia Marsolais figured if she could find the water tower she would know her way around.

After all, this city had been her home for five years. She was wrong.

Except for scattered fragments, the Yellowknife Marsolais knew has been consumed by the more complicated place it has become.

"It was just mind-boggling when we drove in," said the Prince George, B.C. resident. "My daughter-in-law had wondered where we were going because we went so far with no sign of civilization.

"Then when we drove in and we saw all these street lights and skyscrapers. I thought, 'Oh my, and I'm going to try to find something here?'"

Marsolais, then three-year-old Patricia Shank, first arrived here in 1937. Last month's visit, her first time back since moving away, was as much a return to her early years as it was to the early years of the city.

"I've been telling my daughter I played here, I climbed that hill, I walked around there," said Marsolais. "As soon as I got my bearings I knew where I was.

"It seemed like these hills that I climbed were so high then, and now they're just little humps," she said with a sigh.

"The memories are always better than what it really was. But you feel nostalgic because things have changed so bad.

"But I think people that I've met so far are just like they used to be, friendly and open and helpful. They were that way back then. You had to be because sometimes your life depended on your neighbour."

Key connection

Though the water tower on top of Pilot's Monument hill, has not stood for decades, Marsolais found an even better connection to her past.

At the visitors' centre, her daughter-in-law, Debbie, asked after her mum's old best friend, Joyce Loutit. Marsolais was saddened to find out that Loutit had passed away, but that quickly changed to happiness when she was told Joyce's kid brother, Sandy, still lived here.

The two visited Loutit, and for the rest of their stay he served as their tour guide, filling in the gaps between past and present and sharing Marsolais' memories of their childhood.

"We were just going over memories of what we used to do to him, because he was younger, eh," said Marsolais with a hearty laugh.

"That's enough!" interjected Loutit.

"We'd play hide and seek and let him go and hide then run away from him. After a while he finally clued in to what we were doing.

"That came back to me in the middle of last night and I just burst out laughing."

Father came first

George Shank, with his two sons, George Jr. and Carl in tow, came to Yellowknife from Athabasca, Alta., lured by gold finds around the city and the bustling businesses connected to the mining boom here and at Great Bear Lake.

When George felt confident he could make a go of it in the remote settlement -- he found work helping to build Negus and Con, went on to run the Corona Cafe and try his hand at prospecting -- the women of the family followed -- Patricia, her sister Ella and their mother, Mabel.

"Everything was Old Town back then," she recalled.

"People have asked 'Oh, what were the names of the streets?' and I'd say there was no names on the streets.

"There was about maybe only 20 white families in this area," said Marsolais. "There were a lot of men working in the mines but only about 20 families."

Because there was no road here, people travelled to Yellowknife by boat or, as the Marsolais family did, by plane. Supplies came down the Slave River by boat or cat train across the ice. The short ferry ride required between Latham Island and the mainland cost a nickel.

Through a child's eyes

In those days Yellowknife was a magical place for the few children of the community.

"I remember the Northern Lights and the brilliance of them, playing out in the middle of the night and having it just about like daylight because of them," recalled Marsolais.

"The stars were so crystal clear. I remember the silence. And I remember the natives coming in with their dog teams. The air was so quiet, you could hear the dogs coming. They had bells on their harnesses."

A big part of the family adventure here was the boating trips the family went on.

"We'd go on expeditions with dad prospecting," said Marsolais. "They were big picnics as far as I was concerned. I think it was a real hardship on mother, but it was exciting."

Some of the expeditions started out more smoothly than others.

"Once my dad decided we were going to leave in the evening. My mother said, 'Don't you think we should at least wait until daylight?'

"My dad said, 'I can judge by the stars.'

"So we got all loaded up. After boating around for hours dad said, 'Gee, that's funny, I can see a light in the distance.'

"Here it was the Con mine. We travelled around in a circle all night."

As it still is, the weather was always on the minds of those who live here then. Marsolais recalled a cranberry-picking expedition -- "the muskeg was just red with them" -- that almost ended in tragedy.

On the way back a storm hit and the boat almost swamped with the whole family in it.

Another time the weather almost kept Marsolais from performing in the Christmas concert.

"But this real bad storm came up and we couldn't get to it. That was when we were going to the school near the Con Mine.

"One of the native men who knew my father came in. He said he would take us. He took us by dog team to that concert.

"I can remember just what a blizzard it was. That man, after coming in off the trapline, took us there. His dogs were played out but he still took us."

The old house

Though few of the homes and shops of that time here remain, Marsolais was delighted to see that the one most important to her does still stand.

On the shores of Back Bay, the Shank family home stands, just where it did when Marsolais was a little girl.

On shore is a large boulder she claimed as her own back then, when she would sit on it and gaze at the activity on the lake.

The log house is now storage building and sauna for the large family home that stands on the small hill above it.

Marsolais uses a walker and had trouble navigating the steps and grassy hill going down to the house, but she was not going to be denied a close-up look at her old home.

Inside the small cabin she described the layout of the small cabin, once home to a family of six.

Marsolais said the city needs to take better care of the few remaining links it has to its colourful past.

"What I found so sad is you're losing your heritage. This stuff is going and you're not going to be able to replace it if nothing's done about it now," she said. "I mean, what a tourist attraction, really. But it's going and when it's gone -- and when all these oldtimers are gone -- the stories are gone with it."