HAY RIVER - A new coin in Hay River has recognized who might arguably be the community's most famous person – Buffalo Joe McBryan of the reality TV show 'Ice Pilots NWT'.

A new trade coin from the Hay River Chamber of Commerce features the chamber's log on one side and images of Buffalo Joe McBryan of Buffalo Airways and a DC-3 on the other side. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

The image of the owner of Buffalo Airways, along with the company's famed DC-3 aircraft, is featured on the coin produced by the Hay River Chamber of Commerce.

The $5 trade coin has been produced as a fundraising effort by the chamber.

As of March 16, the bronze coin began to be circulated in the community by retail members of the chamber and people can use them like money.

However, they are expected to become a collectable souvenir item.

"I just don't see people using them in trade," said Sandra Lester, the chamber director who came up with the idea of the new coin. "I just think that they're going to pay the $5 and be happy."

It is the first trade coin produced by the chamber since 1984. At that time the coin featured an NTCL vessel.

They will be good in trade anywhere in Hay River until March 31, 2013. After that date, retailers will have 30 days to return them to the chamber in exchange for official currency if they wish.

In all, 3,000 coins have been produced.

Of that number, there are 100 proof coins that have never been touched and never put in circulation. Each of the proof coins, which includes a card signed by McBryan and a picture of the DC-3, sold for $25 each.

"They sold out immediately," Lester said.

About 200 others are mounted on postcards with a picture of McBryan and sell for $10 each.

"The rest will just be in circulation in town," Lester said.

She said the chamber began working on the idea of the coin almost two years ago.

"I researched it a bit and we were going to put a fishing boat on it and try to put it in trade," she recalled.

However, she said one day she was talking to her friend Sharon McBryan, the wife of Buffalo Joe McBryan. "I had that moment where the light turns on," Lester recalled. "I said to her, 'Hey, do you think Joe would let us do a Buffalo coin?' And she said, 'I don't know. We'll ask him.' So we asked him and he said yes."

She added the chamber is deeply grateful to Buffalo Joe McBryan for agreeing to be featured on the coin.

The coin was designed by Lester and Lehaina Andrews, the executive assistant for the chamber.

Lester said the coins from the early 1980s were created by mechanical imprinting.

"Now they're done with lasers," she said. "So they're far more spectacular than they were in 1984."

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