Yellowknife Cabs' manager Dodie Luzny, back, with dispatcher Angela Haller. - Michele LeTourneau/NNSL photo

Dodie Luzny's been in the business in Yellowknife for almost 30 years and she begs to differ.

"There is some violence, but not a lot," she says. "A few drivers might get threatened, but it's not like Edmonton, Vancouver or Toronto."

Now manager for Yellowknife Cabs, Luzny had her first car on the road in 1972 right here in Yellowknife. The car was paid off in seven months. Luzny and another driver kept the car on the road 24 hours a day, each pulling 12-hour shifts.

"I worked at the Gold Range until my oldest daughter was born," says the mother of three, who now has six grandchildren.

"I figured if I could bounce at the Gold Range, I could drive cab. I should have been a guy. I like cars. My husband thought I was nuts. He still thinks I'm crazy."

A fellow woman, Sandy Olexin, inspired her to drive. Luzny was dispatching and Olexin asked her, "Why don't you just drive?"

"You gotta like driving. Nowadays people drive to support a family. In the '70s, you were getting paid a fixed rate. Three dollars from the Gold Range to Ndilo. From Yellowknife to Dettah, $10. It wasn't for the money."

People who can't pay for the ride are the most trouble.

"If they don't pay, you chuck. Believe me, I chucked," she says with a laugh, though she adds that in a small city like Yellowknife, there are alternatives to money every once in a while. Fares have left everything behind, from wallets, cell phones and jackets. The items get returned when the fare pays.

As for inebriated fares, Luzny says, "You don't pussyfoot around drunks."

Reading people, before they get in the cab does help in the job, says Luzny.

"You learn to communicate."

As a self-confirmed people person, Luzny would be back on the road in an instant if she could.

"You do meet all kinds. A lot of all kinds. We won't discuss what you could meet," she says, laughing. She tells the story of a fare who won the lottery a few years ago, and took a cab from Yellowknife to Edmonton, paying $2,000 plus hotel and gas.

Since Luzny can't pass the medical test that would put her back behind the wheel, she manages and dispatches. Despite being office-bound, she says she sees the world through her drivers.

"It's like the United Nations," she says about working with people that come all the way from Vietnam and Somalia. Luzny considers herself a better person for having met the vast array of people she has.

And what if Luzny herself won the lottery?

"Start up a women's fleet. I think a woman can do a better job.

"They have cleaner cars and they're more helpful."

Luzny's seen male drivers who, she says, won't even get out of their cab and help a woman with kids and groceries.

"My husband still says I'm crazy, but if he won the lottery, he'd help."