Yellowknife (May 09/05) - Yellowknife veteran Dusty Miller describes the allies' victory over Germany on May 8, 1945 as more of an eventuality than a surprise.

"It was obvious it was coming. So it was just part of the program, but we were actually relieved that it did," says the 86-year-old, on leave in Ontario at the time.

But after nearly six years of fighting and millions of lives claimed on both sides, the surrender of the Nazis during the second world war was such big news that it even reached the Northwest Territories.

"Huns Surrender," screamed the front page of the May 8, 1945 edition of News of the North.

According to the story, after "the bloodiest and costliest war in history," the Hon. J.L. Ilsley, acting prime minister of Canada, "told Canadians that Tuesday (May 9) would be observed here as V-E (Victory Europe) Day," but on Wednesday it was "back to work as usual."

Although the war was not officially over until the surrender of the Japanese more than three months later, cities around the world celebrated yesterday's 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

Yellowknife was likely the only Canadian capital city that did not officially mark the victory.

Miller says it is more important for V-E Day to be part of "history as opposed to a public occasion."

"Anything that can help keep V-E Day alive or keep the history in the schools, this is the name of the game," he says.

He likens the occasion to a birthday, in that it comes annually, but does not always require fanfare.

With 2005 designated as the Year of the Veteran, Yellowknife's Legion is planning events on July 2 and sometime in November.

"We felt twice was as much as we could handle," said Yellowknife Legion branch manager Lorne Power.

Tom Eagle spent 25 years working on peacekeeping missions, the first of which was in post-war Germany.

He is unhappy with the legion's decision to forfeit a V-E Day ceremony, but said he was going to ask Yellowknife's churches to observe a moment of silence.

"I think we should never forget the sacrifices that the Canadian soldiers made during the wars," he says.

Eagle, 72, remembers hearing of the allies' victory on the daily four o'clock news report while getting ready to head out for recess at his Pine Creek, Man., residential school.

The end of the war meant two men from Eagle's Ojibwa First Nation reserve who were overseas fighting at the time - John Edward Serveright and Alex Razor - were coming home.

"The whole school wanted to see the soldiers come back to their reserve," Eagle recalls. "They were role models. I wanted to have the experiences, or not exactly, but I wanted to do my part, even though the Korean war was not our war."

The Canadian ship to Korea was already full, so Eagle settled for joining a NATO peacekeeping tour of Germany six years after the war.

"You would swear the war had just ended yesterday," says Eagle.

"You could still smell the odour coming out of the ground, it had a sweet sour, smell," he said of his visit to a concentration camp.