SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The 96-foot legacy mural undertaken by the Aurora Arts society is nearing completion, and one has to wonder: was it easy to get 15 artists to agree on the direction of the project?

A few of the contributing artists stand between upper and lower level panel of the legacy mural. From left, Larry Adamson, Jenny Tucker, Ann Timmins, Diane Boudreau, Monique Robert, Sheila Anderson, and Astrid Kruse, with the original photo that inspired it all, on the ground in front. - Charlotte Hilling/NNSL photo

“Ah, no,” said the society's president, Terry Pamplin. “But we sort of knew that when we started.” Pamplin had a no-nonsense solution to the problem from the outset.

“We all walked in and I said 'there's a table in the corner, you can park all your egos right here, and you can pick them up on the way out,'" he said.

The mural was funded by the city's Downtown Enhancement Committee and was inspired by a photo that used to be in a museum exhibit, but has sat in Pamplin's office for some years now.

"It's one of those things, you think, there's a nice picture of Yellowknife, you should do something with it," he said.

He thinks the photo was taken around 1945-55 during the post World War Two boom in Yellowknife, making it an ideal epoch in which to capture the town's spirit.

"It was an optimistic time of course, and prosperous. The town was becoming more-or-less reborn."

For about two months members of the Aurora Arts Society worked in shifts at the Hudson Bay building in Old Town, and every night from 7 to 10 p.m. the mural was chipped away at, with various artists working at different stages of the project.

"Some people started with the initial beginning process, and then they had other commitments so they backed off," said Astrid Kruse.

Monique Robert, a sculptor, said artists who specialized in a different mediums got to try new things.

"Everybody was at different skill levels, and everybody got to try different things," she said.

She said it was "quite surprising," how everything came together on one of the society's biggest undertakings, and the artists gelled by sitting in a circle and talking things over.

Over the weeks that the society has used the Hudson Bay building there have been several opportunities for the public to walk through and Kruse and Robert were delighted with the result.

"People came in and started talking about their history," said Robert.

She remarked about one senior citizen who stopped in at the Hudson Bay building on several occasions, stopping her large Cadillac in the middle of the road to check on progress.

The artists hope the mural will be installed mid-October on the True Value Hardware building.