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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Those looking to take a tour of downtown Yellowknife don't have to look any further than YouTube.

James McGaughey of Ragged Ass Barbers can be seen cutting a young customer's hair in a promotional video put on YouTube by the City of Yellowknife. - image courtesy of the City of Yellowknife

On Thursday evening, the City of Yellowknife launched a video, titled 24 Hours Yellowknife Downtown, to give viewers a sense of what life is like in the centre of the city. The video had more than 8,000 hits by Monday night.

"The response has been nothing short of amazing," said Mayor Mark Heyck. "It kind of took off on Facebook and Twitter (on Thursday) night. It's been really encouraging to see the response to it."

Heyck said comments on the video posted to his Facebook page have come from residents, past-residents, and those who have simply dreamed of travelling to Yellowknife.

The initiative is part of an effort to generate enthusiasm for what Yellowknife has to offer.

"The idea really was to promote Yellowknife to the outside world," said Heyck. "I think there are perceptions about what Yellowknife is like from people who have never been here ... it's cold and isolated and that there probably isn't much to do. But in fact it's a very vibrant and exciting community and there are a lot of amenities and fun things to do around here."

The video, which cost $2,500, was made through the Artless Collective, a Yellowknife-based filmmaking company, and features the song Pretty Big Storm by homegrown band Erebus and Terror.

During the two-minute, 40-second video, viewers are invited on a virtual day of activities in Yellowknife's downtown. The busy schedule includes a morning swim at Ruth Inch Memorial Pool, a leisurely read of Yellowknifer at the Explorer Hotel, a Ragged Ass Barbers haircut, and a night at the Black Knight Pub.

Heyck said the video is part of a larger promotion plan for the city to attract not only more tourists but more residents as well.

Late last year, the city established the Department of Communications and Economic Development, and social media has since emerged as a useful promotional tool for the city, he added, describing the video as a product of these developments.

The message is important because a lack of available information and a lack of promotion have been obstacles to attracting new people to the city, the mayor said.

Heyck recounted a conversation he had with Department of National Defence personnel in Yellowknife who told him they were reluctant to move to the NWT capital due to a lack of information or misinformation.

"Their first reaction is hesitancy because they don't know what it's like and they probably have a picture in their mind which may not be reflective of reality," said Heyck. "We feel that something like this will really help to show what Yellowknife is really like, what a great place it can be to live."

The city intends to produce one video per season to showcase a different area of the city.

The purpose is "to give people ideas about the different flavours of the different times of the year here in Yellowknife," Heyck said.

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