Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 11/02) - Showcasing the North's mining legacy, despite its widespread presence, is no easy task.

That is why a local group of mining aficionados have taken the next step from being a loose ad hoc committee to becoming a full-fledged society in hopes of securing government funding to realize their dreams -- among them, a mining heritage centre and museum at Giant Mine.

The NWT Mining Heritage Society held their first annual meeting Sept. 25, electing a president and board of directors with a mandate to promote and preserve the NWT's 70-year-long mining history.

They hope to have several buildings at the Giant Mine site converted into a museum and information centre by next summer.

"Where the mines developed, the towns developed. It's the history of the North to a large extant," says society president, Walt Humphries.

He estimates that it will cost around $100,000 to get things off the ground.

So far, the society has been able to raise some money by selling calenders, coffee mugs, and the like, but it's not enough.

"The four or five buildings around the A-shaft area (at Giant), a couple of them are in good shape, a couple of them need some work on the foundation," says Humphries.

"So now we need to raise some bigger dollars to get one of the buildings fixed up and to turn into a display centre."

Society vice-president Mike Vaydik says his office at the NWT Chamber of Mines receives numerous inquiries from tourists wanting to tour the mine site but it's still closed to the public.

"People come to my office all the time and say, 'gee too bad I can't go on a mine tour,'" says Vaydik. "I get a tremendous amount of visitors just looking at the rocks saying, 'well got here, we know there's a mining history here, so where is it.'"

Money is not all the society needs to begin assembling display pieces for the museum. Over the years, much of the North's mining history left southward with the miners.

"An awful lot of people who worked in the North and retired South, brought their diaries, artifacts, and photographs with them," says Humphries. "A lot of history up here is in someone's basement down south, so we'd like to liberate that material and bring it back up North to put on display."