Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Former NWT commissioner Tony Whitford has probably seen fewer changes in Yellowknife over 50 years than on his own street.

Former NWT commissioner Tony Whitford discusses his many years in the city beginning in 1958 when he arrived from Fort Smith to take a mechanic's course at a trade school which was later transformed into Sir John Franklin High School. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo

"I would never have thought I would have lived here, which at the time when I came was complete wilderness," said Whitford, who lives on DeWeerdt Drive. The route in the Niven subdivision is finally being paved after citizens in the new housing community have long awaited its completion.

Whitford grew up in Fort Smith and first came to the city in the fall of 1958 to study to become a mechanic at the new trade school, which would later become Sir John Franklin High School. But he describes a culture here that was very mine-centric, independent, populist and reluctant to entertain much change, especially with government infiltration.

"They basked in their independence and mining heritage," said Whitford of the population, which then numbered just under 4,000 people.

With a rapid-fire memory and sharp responses, Whitford can easily describe what the town looked like when he arrived on the docks of Old Town in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Through his descriptions, one can almost hear the hustle and bustle of miners and prospectors picking up clean mugs and dishes at the Miner's Mess near the present day Yellowknife Inn, where locals shared gossip and news of rock finds in the bush. He recalls the density of Old Town and the tents and shacks that made up the flats areas and Ragged Ass Road. He remembers the abundance of good food and large urns of coffee served at the mine cookhouses.

Despite having started as a hands-on worker in his early days - hunting, trapping and fishing, working the Great Slave tugboats and learning a trade in heavy equipment - Whitford became a real champion of government work in the North.

He said the experience at trade school gave him confidence and a foundation of leadership skills to help Yellowknife become the government-oriented economy that the town still enjoys today.

There are certain patterns of social behaviour that he sees as being quite different from the Yellowknife of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He remembers dances held almost every weekend.

"The community had these dances and you used to go out to the rec halls at Giant or Con or at the Elks Hall and every weekend there would be one," he said, noting some miners would play accordions or string instruments. "You don't see that anymore."

In earlier days, there were also fewer media outlets, with no television and limited radio. As a result there was a greater social connection, he said.

Whitford also notices how the gold mine era is very different from the period of diamond mines in how the two industries affected the town. While some people now fly over Yellowknife to get to the new mines, Giant, Ptarmigan and Con were so close by they presented local friendly rivalries that characterized social relationships. This was seen, for instance, in local sporting clubs such as hockey, curling and baseball.

With the advance of flight in the post-war decades as well as road development, particularly with winter roads, the barge activity into Old Town declined sharply, which also changed the town's character, he said.

"The barges would bring in produce all summer until the last one would leave in the fall," he said. "I remember the barges would bring in apples by the hundreds of cases and in those days you could smell them from a mile away. It isn't like that anymore."

Whitford returned to Yellowknife as part of a young family of five in 1977 after a number of years in Fort Smith in the 1960s and studying for a social work degree in Calgary in the 1970s.

After his second arrival, he started work with the federal government, where he helped set up programs and recruited Northern aboriginals to government positions in the North.

"We recruited Northerners for the new jobs that were coming here from Ottawa," he explained. "The capital had moved here after the Carrothers Commission and they needed people born and raised to fill those jobs, particularly aboriginal people."

Since the 1980s, he has worked as an executive assistant for three MLAs and became a Sergeant of Arms, Speaker of the House and eventually the commissioner from 2005 to 2010.

Whitford said a social community and perhaps a return to the type of trades economy he began are important for the future of Yellowknife.

"Right now (the city) is growing and expanding. We have more military and we have more people moving out of Ottawa to settle and it isn't as big of a deal for people to move North," he said.

"One thing we need to bring back is the Sir John concept of having our own trade school here."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.