Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 10/02) - A serious Northern success story or a light and zany Northern sitcom -- it's not easy picking which best fits Gord Olson.

The man -- whose life is work and family, with a little snowmobile racing, camping and bowling on the side -- changes from earnest and thoughtful to playful and goofy from moment to moment.

Olson owns Polar Tech, a company that in eight years has matured from a box of tools to an 8,000-square-foot showroom with offices and garages on Old Airport Road in Yellowknife.

Polar Tech recently expanded into the space next door. He hasn't had time yet to do any interior decorating in his new office so his many certificates and awards are piled on a shelf. He hasn't quite mastered the new cordless phone, which is connected to the phone system, so he loses a call in an attempt to transfer it. Nor has he quite mastered the nifty new clock-CD player that he shows off.

An employee pops in to ask a question and insists to the reporter that if Olson's life story is being written then he really should be consulted for a few facts. A wicked grin takes over both the boss and his employee.

Olson's wife, Barbera, comes in. There's e-mail trouble to sort out, now that there's two offices in two separate spaces. Chalk it all up to growing pains -- and though it all seems like a pain in the neck, they make it look like fun.

Division of labour

Barbera now handles the showroom-dealership end of things, Olson sticks to the rental side. They each have their own offices. Until the expansion, the husband and wife team worked side by side, in the same space.

"Now I'm on this side and she stays on the other side."

The "other side" is hands off for Olson. "It can be stressful, working together. But we handled it well."

Learn as you go

Olson says the business tended to overwhelm the home life, spilling from the office into the house. In the last eight years, there hasn't been much time for family vacations. Barbera would take annual vacations away with the children. This year, Olson plans on taking three weeks with his wife and boys. As the business comes of age, the family can afford the time away together.

About the business, Olson says, "It just kept growing and growing and growing and growing...."

The learning curve has been tremendous.

"There's no book that comes with this thing," he says. "It's all learning as you go along. You make mistakes and you live with them."

The expansion this spring included taking on dirt bikes, street bikes, boats and Sea-doos, to complement the pre-existing snowmobile dealership.

"It's probably the biggest risk we've ever taken. But when I roll the dice, I roll the dice hard."

The season started off with the boats stuck in Hay River, on the wrong side of the Mackenzie River, for a month during breakup.

What can you do, he says.

"You just have to move on from day to day."

But from the way he says it, energy seething from his compact frame, a person can tell it was not a pleasant month.

"Someday that problem will be gone. I'm pro-bridge, anti-ice road."

He laughs, and gets serious again.

"It's so frustrating for a business owner."

Another frustration is competing for business against Edmonton and Southern prices, which are lower than prices in Yellowknife.

"We just can't compete with Edmonton prices."

So how does a Northern business compete?

"You back the products that you sell," says Olson. "When you buy in the North, you get taken care of in the North. It's the buy Northern policy."

The daredevil and the artist

Apparently, a how-to manual didn't come with the boys either.

"Sons, thank goodness!"

The couple lived in Fort Smith when Sam, now 9, was born. Barbera was medevaced to Yellowknife. Olson remembers the fear he felt. He was supposed to have time to follow his wife.

But the situation quickly became a matter of life and death. A C-section was performed. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Olson was told one of them, mother or baby, wouldn't make it. He remembers being petrified.

"It was tragic."

But both Barbera and Sam made it, and it seems Sam's a little spitfire to this day.

When Sam was five, Olson acquired a new racing snowmobile.

Olson jumped on the machine, took it for a fast spin, returned to his son and said, "Not bad, eh? You'll have to try it."

"I was going to get behind him. But he didn't wait."

Sam sped off and on his return towards his father he brought the skis up in the air.

"Then he comes to a stop, shuts it off and says, 'Yeah, it's good.' "

Olson stayed calm.

"I didn't want to show him how freaked out I was."

Though Olson missed Sam's birth, he was there for Bradley's, the couple's seven-year-old.

"It's not something I want to do again," he says with a shudder. "She's in too much pain. I know it's natural, but it just doesn't seem natural."

According to dad, Bradley's a natural rider just like his brother -- both first hopped on sleds at four years old. "But he's not a speed fanatic, he's mellow."

Bradley's the creative, artistic one. Instead of spinning circles around his dad, he spins frightening tales for his mother, like the one about the bear dad and the boys ran into and had to shoot twice. He can fashion a hot guitar from a cardboard box, and he spends hours drawing.

Close quarters growing up

Olson's own family life growing up was a little different. When he was seven, his father died. His mother, with her three children, remarried. The new father brought two children of his own into the family.

"We were five kids all one year apart. I went from having one brother to having two brothers, from having one sister to having two sisters. It was hell!" says Olson, laughing.

Then he gets serious, again. The kids were two, four, five, six and seven.

"It was tough. Nobody really got along. That's not my dad, that's not my mom, that kind of thing. It was close quarters. But we all seemed to turn out alright."