Yellowknife (Oct 27/04) - Yellowknife Hardware won the Business of the Year Award presented by the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce Friday night.

Winning the award was "very gratifying" said part owner Carolyn England.

But the existing store won't win any more awards because it has been sold to the Home Building Centre.

Robert and Pat Winter stand behind the counter at Yellowknife Hardware. - Stephan Burnett/NNSL photo

While the deal is still pending, the transaction is expected to take place by the end of the year, said England's daughter and part owner Pat Winter.

The other owners are Pat's husband Robert and her brother Frank England.

Pat Winter said both she and her husband will be managing the store up until Christmas.

At the beginning of the new year, Charles Corothers, owner of Home Building Supplies, will take over the inventory.

"We will be keeping the location open until the end of March. We have to make space allocation at our existing store and help to move inventories," said Corothers.

He said the Home Building Centre will now become a Home Hardware Building Centre.

"The problem is it's virtually impossible to put someone in place to run that operation and give it the same care that Pat and Robert have for years," said Corothers.

"It's a long time they've been in the community and it's good to see," he said of Yellowknife Hardware winning the award.

Yellowknife Hardware is the second-oldest business in Yellowknife, second only to dry goods store Weaver and Devore, said Pat Winter.

"I think we originally came here in 1945," said Carolyn England.

The store was started by Carolyn's husband Walter and his brother Ralph.

Originally, the store was located on Outpost Island, about 50 miles from Yellowknife on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake.

An old recreation building was dragged across the ice in 1946 and was used as the first permanent structure for the store, located by the Old Town boat launch.

In the 1960s, the store was opened in "New Town" on the site of the Scotia Centre Mall on the corner of Franklin Avenue and 51st Street.

"Then in '72 we moved again -- because they wanted to put up the mall -- down to where we are now in 51st Street," said Carolyn England.

"When I came here I had been a bride for a few years. We were married during the war. I raised my kids here and have been here ever since.

"I moved here from Toronto and my mother thought I was going to the ends of the earth. I told my mother, 'Don't worry, I'll be back in five years,' and of course, here I am -- famous last words," she said with a chuckle.