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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Five Yellowknife businesses were honoured last week at the Explorer Hotel by the Akaitcho Business Development Corporation during its annual awards gala.

Akaitcho Business Development Corporation board director Roy Erasmus Jr., left, honours Grant Blondin, owner of Didehcho Gas & Diesel Services, with the Aboriginal Award of the Year at the corporation's annual awards gala last week. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Didehcho Gas & Diesel Services, Sam's Monkey Tree & Diamante Restaurant, Yk Glass Recyclers, S.L. Painting and Bella Dance Academy were the winners at the ceremony.

Grant Blondin, owner of Didehcho, which repairs and services a variety of machines that run on gas and diesel, said he was surprised when first notified by Akaitcho he'd be receiving the Aboriginal Award of the Year.

"I just did what I have to do, which is to offer repair services. That's all. All of a sudden for my hard work and my consistency, to be nominated for award was quite surprising," said Blondin, who will celebrate the first anniversary of his business next month.

Blondin previously worked as a repairman at Kingland Ford, then at the Diavik Diamond Mine, where he repaired light-duty vehicles. But the two-week-in, two-week-out lifestyle that came with the latter job was hard on him.

"It was nice to get away from the mine thing. I did that for six years and being away from my two girls was quite hard," he said.

Blondin credited his fiancee, Eye Candy Hair Design owner Jocelyn Christensen, for encouraging him go into business for himself.

Harvey Bourgeois and Steve Dinham, co-owners of Sam's Monkey Tree & Diamante Restaurant, were given the Excellence Award of the Year.

Bourgeois, originally from Cape Breton, came North to work as a bartender at The Gallery but later went to Ottawa to study hotel and restaurant management. He returned to Yellowknife in the late 1980s, working as general manager of the Monkey Tree under its original owner, Sam Yurkiw, until he became the owner himself.

"When I took it over in 1996, business had gone down quite a bit. Both mines were closed. We had to restart and rebuild the business," said Bourgeois.

Renovations and additions - including a new dance floor - helped perk the place up, and by the time the outdoor patio with 80 seats was built in 2004, business was thriving.

Asked what accounts for the success of The Monkey Tree and Diamante, Bourgeois said, "I think Steve and I were both (concentrating) on service and the quality of food."

Matthew Grogono, majority shareholder of Yk Glass Recyclers, was given the Environmental Award of the Year.

Grogono started recycling glass in 1994 when he was unsatisfied with the city of Yellowknife's waste management practices, going so far as to send city council a set of glasses made of recycled material. The business became a co-operative in 2006.

"I'm doing it because I believe that recycling is very important," said Grogono. "Developing better ways of waste management is crucial."

Sebastien Levesque, 26, owner of S.L. Painting, was awarded the Youth Business Award of the Year.

Levesque said he decided to open his own business in July 2007 because his industry is thriving in Yellowknife.

"There's a bunch of work up here ... Sometimes it might work out there's a slow month, but that's OK because there are crazy months," said Levesque.

Lina Ball, owner of Bella Dance Academy, rounded out the ceremony as winner of the Business of the Year Award.

The award comes on the heels of Ball being named the NWT's Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) in Vancouver last October. Ball also won the Excellence of the Year Award at least year's Akaitcho ceremony.