Yellowknife (July 30/04) - A recent visit from two sisters on a nostalgic tour of their 1940s birth town has yielded more than memories for Yellowknife.

Before they returned home to the United States, Karen Trudel Pritchard and Suzanne Trudel Roberts handed over a box of historic information from 1921 to 1944 to the NWT Archives.

Peter Harding, archivist, wears gloves to handle the NWT Archives' most recent acquisition. Two sisters visiting the town of their birth in July donated a collection of historic information from 1940s Yellowknife, including 46 photographs, to the Archives. - Lisa Scott/NNSL photo

The collection includes 46 photographs, newspaper clippings and a biography of their father Paul Trudel, a former mining recorder in Fort Smith and Yellowknife.

"It's a nice sized collection," said Peter Harding, archivist.

As well as pictures of the family of four and their Latham Island log home, the collection includes shots of prominent members of the frontier community, such as Father Gathi and Dr. Oliver Stanton.

Each picture also contains a caption with dates and names, which makes them that much more valuable, said Harding.

"The captions are excellent. A lot of the time we'll have a wonderful picture, but the captions are missing and the value of the collection is less," he said.

A biography of Paul Trudel, who moved to Fort Smith in 1921 and left the North for Ottawa in 1944 has already been used by a researcher at the office.

It included information about the individual he was searching for.

The other items will take time to sort through and store, says Harding.

It could be two to three months before digitized prints of the photos and other items are available to the public.

"There's a lot of effort and energy that goes into studying and storing them," said Harding.

Yellowknife items make up the bulk of the 50,000 pieces currently stored in the archives. Items dating back before the 1940s are especially coveted.

The NWT Archives receives as many as 50 non-government donations a year.

They are "essential" to the Archives because they no longer have a budget to purchase collections from the public, said Harding.

Researching a birthplace

The Trudel sisters spent a week in Yellowknife in mid-July, combing Latham Island for their old home and travelling to Joliffe Island to see if a cabin was still standing.

Born Jan. 12, 1942, Trudel Pritchard thought she may even have been the first baby born at the second Con Mine Hospital, which records show opened that same day.

Sue Glowach, member of the heritage committee currently raising money to move the original Con Cottage Hospital, couldn't confirm the fact without more research.

Raised half of the money

"It may never be clarified because of record keeping," she says.

The Con Cottage Hospital Project committee has raised half the required $100,000 needed to move the smaller hospital to a new site by Stanton Territorial Hospital in the fall.

The Trudel's visit to the city proved to her how important heritage projects and the buildings they seek to restore are.

The donation to the archives is another bonus, said Glowach.

"It is important for the archives that they've made this kind of donation back to the city," she said.

The sisters haven't finished their research in Yellowknife yet. After just two visits to their birthplace in 60 years, they say they will be back.