SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Now that Mike Yorston is the "Manliest Man" in Yellowknife, he's taking a lot of heat for it.

"I'm getting a pretty good ribbing from all sides," the pilot laughed, explaining that his friends, family and Air Tindi co-workers have been teasing him endlessly since he won the Yellowknifer's Father's Day contest by one vote.

Mike Yorston, winner of the "Manliest Man" contest, with his winnings: two $200 cheques, one for dinner at The Office and the other as a donation for Ducks Unlimited. - Katie May/NNSL photo

"You can just imagine," Yorston joked. "I think they're probably just plain jealous."

His wife Karen nominated him for the title of the city's manliest among five other hopeful manly men, writing in her nomination letter that "his idea of a really good time is playing with his many power tools and he also likes to weld things together that sometimes shouldn't be."

She said she was relieved when her husband won 161 online votes against Gary Burt's second-place finish of 160 because of all the hard work she put into gathering support for him. Her computer crashed on the final day of voting last Wednesday, and when it finally came back on with only 20 minutes to spare before the 5 p.m. deadline, she frantically rallied all her co-workers to vote for him. Friends from across the country and even as far as Singapore logged on to cast their votes for Yorston.

"It was just chaos until 5 p.m.," Karen recalled. "It was a relief."

"We tried pretty hard to get him to win and get votes," she said. "People have asked me to run their election campaigns!"

So, what's it like being married to the "manliest" man in the city?

"You'd think he'd be more nice to me," Karen said. "He still doesn't take out the garbage - I guess he's too good for that," she joked.

The couple will use Yorston's prize winnings - a $200 gift certificate for The Office dining lounge - to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. Part of his prize also included a $200 donation to his favourite charity, Ducks Unlimited.

Mike said he chose the charity because he goes to a lot of dinners hosted by Ducks Unlimited and frequently buys equipment from their stores.

"They're doing a lot to save the wetlands," he said.

Though he said finding out that he won the contest "made the day go by a little smoother," he didn't think he would hear the end of it from his buddies any time soon.

"I suspect this will follow me around for a while."