Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 07/01) - A recent ad placed in the classifieds has the makings of a Cinderella story with a modern-day twist.

"I recovered your other shoe that you lost ... Saturday night," the advertisement read, complete with name and phone number of the person who found the shoe, Denise Bicknell.

Denise Bicknell and the black pump she recovered from the icy reaches of Frame Lake. - Dawn Ostrem/NNSL photo

The tiny black pump was not found on a grand staircase, however. This story was set in the North so, fittingly, the shoe was found frozen into the ice on Frame Lake.

It was more a story of how helpful Yellowknifers are to one another, even though the slipper was lost after a formal function and by a woman wearing a fancy parka who did not leave her name.

"Two women?" Bicknell thought. "I guess it could be a modern-day Cinderella."

On Nov. 25 Bicknell was walking her dog on the path near the legislative assembly when she came upon a woman searching for the pump.

"Do you think your dog would be able to find it?" the woman asked her.

"He is not that smart," Bicknell replied, but stopped to help in the search.

The woman, in her fancy fur-trimmed parka, told Bicknell she put her dress shoes in her pocket when she left a function at the legislative assembly.

Both women eventually tracked down the shoe, on a patch of slushy ice. However, when Bicknell attempted to try and grab it, it sunk deeper. She said wasn't dressed properly to go gallantly diving in after it.

The woman eventually accepted that her shoe would likely float to the bottom of the lake and left without telling Bicknell her name.

"I felt so bad because I accidentally kicked her shoe under the ice," Bicknell said.

So, she returned to the scene later, decked out in gumboots, and kicked at the recently frozen ice until she recovered the pump.

"She probably did not see the ad because I am sure she would have called," said Bicknell.

"As long as she has not thrown the other one out."