SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - We may be talking about more than a clip here.

Yellowknifer Henry White, owner of Henry's Barber Shop, has put his 48 Street business up for sale.

Henry White, owner of Henry's Barber Shop, gives customer Chuck Tolley a shave. White is trying to sell his shop, which opened in Yellowknife in 2003. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

The 55-year-old barber said the high cost of living and running a business up North prompted the decision. The shop opened in Hay River in 1996 before expanding to a second location in Yellowknife in 2003.

"I think if you can't put anything in your savings account and you're paying it all out, why stay?" he said.

White said he sees recent cutbacks at the three Yellowknife diamonds as another sign he may be bowing out at the right time.

Late last year, BHP Billiton cut 12 contract employees who were developing the Ekati mine's underground Panda pit, which is now completed.

Rio Tinto also announced it would cut back its underground construction staff at the Diavik Diamond Mine, although it provided no figures.

In March, De Beers Canada eliminated 128 jobs at its Snap Lake Diamond Mine, 13 of them belonging to Yellowknifers. The company also expected another 90 contractor jobs to go.

"I've got the RCMP, the downtown core office workers, the Rangers and the Canadian Forces. But my biggest thing is I do a lot of mine workers," said White, who added business among mine workers has declined by 45 per cent in the past four months.

"But it's not only the mine workers. I lost a lot of pilots, too ... It's very sad when you look at my book."

While some are hopeful that the economy will get back on its feet within the year, White is not so optimistic.

"Times are going to get tough in the next couple of years," he said.

The pool of potential customers who come from the mines will certainly decrease. Once the Diavik mine becomes fully underground by 2012, the mine's staff, which hovered around 830 in March, will decline to approximately 600.

"I might be wrong, but I don't think so. There's too many people leaving here," said White, who has travelled to Edmonton only to run into former customers who, unbeknownst to him, had moved out of Yellowknife.

White said he's giving himself until September to sell the store. If he's unsuccessful, he'll stay open - but with reduced hours.

"I will work four weeks on and two weeks off. I won't push it."

Long-time customer Chuck Tolley said that if White left, what he'd miss most is the poll White runs every election year.

"He asks you who you think is going to win and when you get a haircut you get the option to vote. He adds them up and he's almost always accurate," said Tolley, adding, "You always get good talk here."

"I'd move to whatever town Henry went to," cracked fellow customer Michael Ward.