Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 07/02) - It wasn't until they left that Betty Vaughan and her family realized where they really wanted to be. After more than two decades in Yellowknife, Betty knows she's no longer a temporary resident.

Vaughan, vice-principal of J.H. Sissons, typify many people who make the move up North. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Betty Vaughan and her family perhaps typify many people who make the move up North.

The Vaughan family planned to spend a couple of years in Yellowknife and then head back home. That was back in 1979, when Betty's husband, Alan, took an 18-month job with the territorial government. The family, originally from Martinville, Ont., are still here.

"My husband was looking for a challenge. He was working for Parks Canada, and said to them if anything comes up, give me a call," recalls Betty.

A few months passed, before a phone call to her husband perked Betty's ears.

"I heard 'Yellowknife, 'where's that?'" says Betty. "I didn't know where it was, but I knew it was far. I didn't want to go."

But a desire to do something different was enough to convince the couple to at least give it a try.

Betty and the couple's two-year-old daughter, Helen, joined her husband in Yellowknife in March 1980. It was still the dead of winter, and Betty was wondering how to keep Helen and herself busy and meet some friends at the same time.

"I was reading the Yellowknifer, and I thought it was cute," says Betty. "It was there that I read an ad for Moms and Tots. That was the beginning of some wonderful friendships."

A home of their own

Another dilemma arose. Unlike their house in Martinville -- with it's rich and spacious garden plot -- the family's Bromley Drive home sat on a moonscape field of pink granite.

"It overlooked the chain link fence at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre," says Betty. "It was so stark."

But Betty and her family remained undaunted. If the house lacked esthetic appeal then it was up to them to make it beautiful. A drive down the Ingraham Trail produced birch trees to line the front yard. Sod was brought in to cover up the dirt and rock, and in the front yard grew a vegetable garden.

The Vaughan's purchased a lot on Tibbitt Lake in 1984, and began building a cabin.

"My husband had never built anything in his life," muses Betty. "He's not a carpenter, but we worked like beavers to finish it."

The Vaughan family felt comfortably established in Yellowknife by 1985. They had met a host of new friends, and even learned to enjoy the North's sometimes harsh climate.

Their connection to the North was further bolstered by the birth of their son, Ian, at Stanton Regional Hospital here in Yellowknife.

Moment of truth

In the summer of 1985, the territorial government asked Alan to go to Vancouver, B.C., to oversee the construction of the NWT pavilion for Expo '86.

It was in Vancouver that the Vaughan family first seriously pondered whether their connection to the North was for the long haul.

"When we were at Expo '86 there were times when I asked myself, 'do I really want to go up there again?'" says Betty. "It's so cold and there's such good shopping in Vancouver."

"That all changed when Helen came crying to me and said, 'mom, I don't know anybody here. All my friends are in Yellowknife.' From the mouth of an eight-year-old kid to say that. It makes you think."

The culmination of the Vaughan's stay in Vancouver occurred on the summer solstice, June 21. The date was designated NWT day at Expo '86.

"It was just as if my family had come home," says Betty. "We had the politicians coming down. We had the bagpipers. The Dene drummers came down ... A Dene woman put Ian in a mooseskin and bounced him around.

"Here we were in downtown Vancouver but it felt like we were back in the Northwest Territories. We brought the North to Vancouver."

With Expo '86 winding down, the Vaughan family began thinking about where they would live upon returning to Yellowknife. They had sold their house after moving to Vancouver.

"Cominco was getting rid of houses, so we decided to put a bid on the house on Matonabee (Street). We had never been in the house but it looked good from the outside," says Betty.

Back to school

After nine years of staying at home with the children, Betty decided she would to go back to work. In 1987 she took a job teaching Grades 1 to 3 at J.H. Sissons school in Yellowknife.

"I had taught a number of years in Ontario," says Vaughan. "When I stood in front of the class, I was so scared. 'Whole language?' 'brain storming?' I never heard of them (certain educational concepts). Even the noise level was different. There was a business to the class that I didn't know."

But Betty persevered, and in 1993 she moved to the newly-built Range Lake North school to work as the program support teacher.

It was there she developed an interest in the administrative side of education. She was among the first group of teachers to sign up for a new leadership training program with Yellowknife Education District No.1 in 1997.

Betty figured the next logical step was to pursue a master's degree in education. However, she still had a young family to worry about at home in Yellowknife. She needed a program that would allow her to complete her post-graduate degree as quick as possible.

The solution came via the University of Victoria in British Columbia., which offered intensive summer courses for the master's program.

"Thank God my family was supportive," says Betty. "It was a lot of hard work. I didn't have a life while I was teaching and going to school."

Another concern was the family cabin at Tibbitt Lake. It was the summer of 1998, and a forest fire was raging only a few kilometres from the Ingraham Trail. Betty was in school at the time.

"God must have been with us, because it didn't burn. While I was doing my master's degree, I heard it on the radio that they were talking about evacuating Yellowknife."

Fortunately, no harm was done. She returned to Yellowknife in the fall after successfully completing the master's program. Her achievement was praised by family, friends, and colleagues.

"It meant so much to go to the district office, and they made me a cake, and everything," recalls Vaughan. "It was so powerful. It really impacted the way I teach."

That same year Vaughan returned to J.H. Sissons as the school's new assistant principal. The job, she says, is for those who don't mind being a jack of all trades.

"No two days are ever the same," says Vaughan. I usually have my little to do list, but it doesn't always work. People know they can come to me, and they do. A kid under the desk who won't come out, a sub who won't show up."

Feels like home

After living in Yellowknife for more than 20 years, Vaughan says it's safe to say she no longer feels like a temporary Northerner. It feels like home. Community and deep friendships, says Betty, were the key.

"I think I'll be curling Hazel's (Wainwright) hair at the senior's centre, and she'll be curling mine," says Betty with a laugh.