SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - There's Meals-on-Wheels. Why can't there be Haircuts-on-Wheels?

That line of thought is what drove Brian Pearce to begin his own mobile barbershop, Brian's Mobile Barber Servies, which will alternatively service Yellowknife residents and people from smaller communities both up North and throughout the rest of Canada.

Brian Pearce, owner of Brian's Mobile Barber Services, says operating a barbershop out of a trailer has its advantages, among them no rent and the ability to reach customers who would otherwise stay home. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo Video interview

"I've been cutting hair for practically 28 years," said Pearce, who took up his first pair of clippers as a kid growing up in his neighbourhood in Port aux Basques, N.L.

"I did a few haircuts in the neighbourhood and people were telling me, 'This is what you should do.'"

But Pearce doesn't like to be tied down in one location, so installing a barbershop on a flatbed trailer seemed like a good compromise. Visiting his kids in B.C. will be easier, for one thing.

"If I'm mobile, it gives me the chance to go visit them more frequently," he said.

Pearce said the primary reason for starting the business was to cater to people who can't leave their homes.

"I will actually go to their house," he said. "If you can't get out, I'm more than glad to help them out."

But his current plan is to park his unit near the Anderson Thomson Tower, across the road from Sir John Franklin High School.

"It's a residential area and people are walking from work and they seemed to be more relaxed than near Wal-Mart and Mark's Work Warehouse, where people are just rushing by," he said. "A lot of them don't have time to sit down."

Pearce said he plans to keep his mobile unit open until late October or late November by providing heat to his trailer via an anti-freeze heating system that hooks up to his car. During the winter, he'll travel to the West Coast and take his business to small East Coast communities.

But the business' home will always be Yellowknife, he said.

"I feel that this thing also belongs to this town, Yellowknife," said Pearce. "It was built here."