Yellowknife (May 16/03) - The Haitians of the old world had a word "barbacoa" for their wooden platforms used to dry meats.

Somehow that word was changed to "barbecue" in our language, which means a gathering with pals, typically outdoors, to roast meat and share good cheer.

Of course, the instrument used to roast meat is still called "barbecue" but its changed a lot since the days of bamboo sticks manually rotated over an open fire.

You can spend as little as $13 and as much as $1,000 to get the right grill.

If you want portability and you don't want to break the bank, there's still the little Hibachi grills available or the very popular tabletop barbecue, according to Canadian Tire manager Terry Hartwright.

"They all started flying out of here over the last couple weeks," he said.

The tabletop barbecues can easily be taken out to your favourite outdoor spot.

People who come looking for the big guns, the patio grills, are most concerned about grill space and value, said Hartwright.

The Cadillac of barbecues--The Weber model--comes with 4,000 square centimetres of cooking surface and it will cost you about $930.

That's room for enough caribou steaks and grayling fillets to feed most of Latham Island so you're sure to be a popular party host if you can afford to fire one of those up.

There's also barbecues that come with built-in 10-gallon coolers on the bottom level to keep everything chilled for the perfect picnic.

After selling only one barbecue over the winter months, Home Hardware owner Robert Winter said he's sold 20 over the past 10 days and they're still flying out the door.

The most popular feature this year is a built-in new heat source that replaces lava rocks or synthetic briquettes.

"It's stainless steel covered in porcelain that heats up and releases metallic flavour waves," he said.

"It gives you a lot more even heat coverage and it doesn't flare up so you won't have to use the water gun as much."