One queen or two? That's the question now plaguing Caribou Carnival organizers after their tradition-breaking decision to crown their two top ticket sellers.
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 04/01) - According to Christiane Boyd, there's room for only one Queen in Caribou Carnival's royal family.
"I would like for the (Caribou Carnival) Association to recognize that I was the one who sold the most tickets, that I am Queen, and Gisele Forget is the runner-up," says co-Queen Christiane Boyd.
It was announced at Caribou Capers last Wednesday night that two contestants, Boyd and Forget, would be crowned this year to recognize the unprecedented number of raffle tickets both women sold. Nine women were entered in the contest.
"At that time there was less than a 10-ticket difference between the first two candidates," says carnival president Glen Tait.
"We never announced who won. Because both of them were head and shoulders above everyone else, because of the tremendous effort that they put in, and because of the fact that we'd never had a situation like this before, we thought it would be a great thing to give both of them a trip to Mexico and name both of them as queens."
Boyd maintains that on the night she and Forget were crowned, they compared numbers: Boyd sold 9,000 tickets and Forget, 8,988.
"In any contest, and this is a contest, there is only one winner and there are runners-up. The association had no business changing the rules at the last minute," says Boyd.
Quest for the Crown contest rules state that in each age category, the contestant who sells the most tickets will be deemed the winner.
"Half the limelight, half the glory, half of everything was taken from me," says Boyd.
"They really put me on the spot. They even asked me on stage if this was OK."
Boyd is further upset by the fact that on the night of her win, she didn't get the opportunity to thank her sponsors and the people who supported her.
"Miss Forget took the microphone, and the whole limelight was on her. Right up until I took the little prince and started dancing with the little prince, and then the whole crowd roared," Boyd says.
Forget says that the issue is between Boyd and the Caribou Carnival.
"My ultimate goal was to raise money for the carnival, and I did that."
