LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Christmas spirit and the scent of gingerbread were in the air for participants in an inaugural contest.

The Department of Human Resources office in Fort Simpson challenged all of the other territorial government departments in the village to a gingerbread house contest. The result was three edible houses that set a high standard for future years.

Chris Cli, left, Rosie Boots, Tanya Hurst and Hilda Antoine worked with icing and numerous candies to make their entries for the Department of Human Resources' gingerbread house contest. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

First place, as decided by a panel of three judges on Dec. 8, went to Aurora College's essential skills class. Chris Cli, Rosie Boots and Gilbert Fantasque along with instructor Amy MacDonald created a Northern cabin.

"It was pretty easy," said Cli.

The students baked gingerbread cookies at the school, broke them up to look like logs and built the cabin's walls using icing to hold the structure together. Next came the roof, two slabs of gingerbread covered in frosted Mini Wheats.

Students finished their creation with extra touches that included a woodpile made of licorice and a fence formed with gummy spearmint leaves. The entire project took two days.

The cabin was fun to make, said Cli. All of the students managed to avoid the temptation of snacking on the building material while working, he said.

The other two participants in the contest both admitted to taste testing their supplies.

Tanya Hurst, a senior finance and administration officer for Industry, Tourism and Investment and Environment and Natural Resources, was a newcomer to the field having never made a gingerbread house before.

"It's a lot of work," she said.

Hurst used a kit from the Northern Store but still spent two evenings and one morning assembling and decorating her house.

"I found it a challenge," she said.

Hurst, who took third place, battled with collapsing walls and icing that was slow to set. After seeing the other entries Hurst said she was inspired and took down notes.

"The competition is on for next year," she said.

The contest, which fit into the department's healthy workplace initiative, was about getting people involved and team building, said Hilda Antoine, a human resource officer.

Having initiated the contest Antoine decided she should participate, too. The result, which won second place, was a Hansel and Gretel inspired candy extravaganza with a steeply peaked roof modeled on Antoine's own house.

Antoine also faced house-building challenges. Her gingerbread got slightly burnt and one side of the roof cracked and had to be glued together.

To compensate Antoine added more candy. Using supplies from her house and reinforcements sent from Yellowknife Antoine incorporated approximately 14 kinds of confections to her creation. The finished project, which included an evergreen tree made from spearmint leaves, took three days of kitchen time.

"It was a lot of work but it was fun," Antoine said.

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