SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
As the city continues its long, storied transition from rugged gold mining town into a modern capital city, few people remain who can say they've watched it all unfold. But Aurel and Annette Lemay can.
The couple, who live in a small house on 55 Street, will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary in May.
Some may recall the city designating a Lemay Drive to be built along the Bayview Estate lots where new condos are being built. But what many may not know until now is how the two became such a legendary couple in the city's history.
Aurel, 92, is one of a very few number of people to stay on at Negus Mine during the Second World War when most young men were heading overseas to fight. His father Adolfe first arrived in 1939 and became an established boiler and timberman at the mine, located a few kilometres south of Con Mine. Aurel was working on a farm in Lac La Biche, Alta., when he came north to join his father in 1941.
In 1950, Aurel and his family visited relatives in Valleyfield, Que. During that visit, his family visited Annette's parents' home because she was a distant relative to the Lemays through her mother. Annette was working as a clerk in a large clothing store in downtown Montreal at the time and Adolfe suggested Annette should come to Yellowknife with the promise of working at the Hudson's Bay Company store.
Annette took up the offer with the intent of staying for a year. However, she ended up falling in love with the beautiful, northern view.
"To see the water at Negus Mine just out of the house - I never saw water like that in Montreal," said Annette, 91. "It was such
a different way of living."
She lived with the Lemay family at Negus for a few years before Aurel asked her to marry him. She accepted, and remembers having difficulty picking an appropriate wedding date because Aurel, his father and two brothers all worked on individual shifts at the mine. The Lemays still keep photos of the wedding, which was held at the old St. Patrick's Catholic Church location in Old Town.
Annette remembers wearing a grey dress, a pink blouse, pink hat, pink gloves, pink purse and grey shoes - all items she picked out of an Eaton's catalogue.
"I wanted to be married, but I didn't want to be married in white because I thought I was too old," she said during a tour of her hobby room.
As for Aurel, he showed the dark blue blazer he still has from that day - it still has "Eaton's" emblazoned on the inside liner. In his case, however, there are mixed memories of whether the jacket was ordered through the Eaton's store or whether he got it during the annual visit by a men's suit salesman.
When Negus Mine closed in 1952, the mine had a number of company houses left over, so for $500, the house the Lemays were living in was moved to where it currently sits.
"Oh my, there was nothing here," said Lemay, saying it had only been recently surveyed. "This was a company house and when we got married and when Negus mine was closing, these houses were for sale. We couldn't stay at Negus Mine anymore and they moved it here."
Over the years, keeping the romance alive was sometimes a challenge, Annette said. Aurel was often extremely busy working at the mine where he worked 14 days straight, followed by four days off. She, on the other hand, spent a lot of her life as a housewife, never actually working for Hudson's Bay as had been originally planned. The two never did have children.
It is hard not to make the analogy between how long their house has stood solidly and how long they have kept their marriage going.
"Everybody are surprised after all these years that this house is 78 years old and that we never had a wall or window cracking," said Annette. "But that is our home and we were all the time in it. And happy in it."
As they get older, however, the two say the bond has only strengthened.
"It gives you security and you're not alone," said Aurel, to which Annette agreed. "Now that we are older we need each other more than ever."
When asked what was planned for Valentine's Day this year, Annette laughed.
"Oh not anymore."
