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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Paul Gard remembers looking wide-eyed at the seemingly open Mackenzie River crossing separating the south from Fort Providence in April 1970. The sign said "Ice Road Open."

Paul Gard, director of finance and administration for the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority, looks through an old photo album of his first years in Yellowknife in the early 1970s at his office on Wednesday. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo

"I said, 'We can't cross that!'" said Gard, from his office in Yellowknife Wednesday.

He was sitting in the backseat of a grey 1964 Pontiac station wagon with his stepbrother, his mother and stepfather in the front, as a semitruck passed them on the shore and plowed through a foot of water skimming the surface of the ice road, which was in its last days that season.

The family was on their last leg of a journey from London, Ont., travelling the gravel road which ran from Peace River, Alta., to Yellowknife. Gard was 11 years old. His stepfather, who lived here before, wanted to come back.

The next instance of culture shock for the newly Northern Gard was settling in to their one-room home in Old Town, where Hak's Auto Body is now.

"We lived right behind the University of Western Ontario in London, a fairly big city, and then our first house here was one room with a wood stove and no running water. I asked my mom where the washroom was. It was a honey bucket in the front hallway Š I was like, what are we doing here?" chuckled Gard, who is now in his early 50s.

"Mom made a commitment that if I didn't enjoy it, adjust to living here, that I could go back and live with my (aunt). But that never happened. Forty-two years later, I'm enjoying the North and I've raised a couple of girls here now. It's great."

Gard spent his summers on the ball fields around the city. He joined the 1971 minor ball league and hasn't turned back since.

His first road trip was to play an exhibition game in Behchoko, Fort Rae back then. A former coach of Gard's called him a quiet, mild-mannered guy off the field, but on the field, the adrenaline and competitive nature starts up.

"I'm not overly aggressive, but definitely out there to try and win," he said.

Gard's passion for the sport hasn't faltered over the years. He's coached and he continues to be active in organizing and supporting both softball and fastpitch.

After graduation in 1976, Gard took a job with Imperial Oil as a fuel delivery driver for three years. When the temperatures plunged to the -30s, Gard said it made for long days.

"One year, the (City of Yellowknife) actually gave certificates to every resident in Yellowknife because we survived 37 days never being warmer than 35 below straight," he said.

"In the summers it was quieter, but busy hauling drums to the float docks going out to exploration camps," he said.

Wardair was in business back then, and Ptarmigan Airways was located where Arctic Sunwest's float base sits.

The less busy summer days allowed Gard to play fastpitch to his heart's content. Gard thrived as a pitcher. He joined a senior men's team in Edmonton in 1980. His mother allowed him to go on the condition he would attend college.

His 1981 fastpitch team, the Crown Well Oilers, went on to win the national championship and was eventually inducted into the Alberta Softball Hall of Fame in 2009.

Gard completed a two-year business program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, came back to Yellowknife in 1984 and landed a job at the federal government's medical services branch as a finance clerk. From there, he said, he worked his way thought different levels in the finance field.

In November of 2003, he made his last professional move thus far, to the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority as director of finance and administration.

"I've been here ever since, working on my 10-year service award," he said.

Gard has seen the community he came into as a shocked 11-year-old from Ontario change and develop before his eyes.

His two daughters, Dana, 21, and Tehnille, 20, don't remember the Cassidy Point horseshoe tournaments or the Hudson's Bay furniture store where the Greenstone Building sits. Even his wife Brenda, who came to Yellowknife to work as a nurse in the early 1980s, wasn't around to see the Wardair plane mounted on the hillside on the outskirts of the city centre.

"The city, it's amazing the difference as you see it grow," he said.

Gard is toying with the idea of heading south after retirement, but something is holding him here.

"I'm not sure yet. Maybe we'll make Yellowknife a home base. I really enjoy Yellowknife and the people here," he said.

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