Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 31/01) - King Fisher's gun hand moved with unseen swiftness.

The gunfighter with a handlebar moustache from the 1800s, lies two dimensional between the mouldy pages of a Western who's-who magazine on a wooden cabinet, scratched by cold and dust inside the 63 year-old Hudson's Bay building in Old Town.

From left, Matt Grogono, Arlene Yaceyko, April Parchoma, and Bev Anderson, all want to turn the Hudson's Bay building into an arts centre. With its historic qualities and funky look, the building is the perfect fit, they believe. - NNSL file photo

Between stainless steel sinks, an electronic bingo board and rows on rows of mattresses, three members of the Aurora Arts Society and the city market director listen intently, as building owner and Yellowknife developer Les Rocher tells the tale of the building.

Here is where they once tanned hides, here is where they cured tobacco, here the floorboards stand on end for greater support, there used to be windows along this wall.

Sitting on the eastern skirt of pilot's monument, the building overlooks Back Bay, where small motor boats are overturned on shore, the water now frozen. There are those in the city who want to turn this building into an arts centre.

Matthew Grogono, owner of Yellowknife Glass Recycles, is behind this drive. He speaks of the building's future with the assurance of someone retelling the past.

Grogono is looking to get money for a feasibility study. He said they've only started to scratch the surface of possible federal government grants.

"There is an incredible potential here," said Grogono. "Yellowknife Glass Recycles wants to help facilitate that expansion of available space."

Yellowknife painter Bev Anderson believes Yellowknife needs collective creative space for artists and the public.

"The very spirit of creativity is people getting together and sharing," said Anderson. "The very reason artists create is because they chose something and love what they do. This is a place where they can share and the public can be inspired."

Owner Les Rocher is not adverse to the idea of an arts centre and has always hoped it would be put to public use.

Renovating the whole building is an expensive operation. Rocher did a large chunk of it.

Rocher said he acquired the building around 12 years ago in a deal with Northwest Trading Company which had bought out the northern Hudson's Bay Company.

Rocher said he's been waiting for different levels of government to decide the fate of the building. He's currently using it for storage.

"A lot of it had to do with time," said Rocher about the reasons he hasn't developed the building. "It's a big building and it demands a lot of work."

He said the building is a heritage site and should be treated as such.

"It's more a municipal thing," said Rocher.

"If they don't (do anything with the building) I'll turn it into an apartment building and then it will lose its heritage status," said Rocher.

For now Grogono and Anderson are preparing their arguments for the building.

Anderson is writing the proposal to get funding for a feasibility study.

"Yellowknife is a capital city, it needs this," said Anderson.