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'I was very fast'
Former Yk auctioneer inducted into Saskatchewan hall of fame

Daniel Campbell
Northern News Services
Published Friday, March 21, 2014

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After 33 years as an auctioneer, Mel Stroeder says he's still very fast, but not so fast you can't hear what he's selling.

"There's lots of auctioneers that got a real big mumble. You can't understand them. I was the opposite of that," Stroeder said on the phone from his home in Humboldt, Sask.

Stroeder was inducted into the Saskatchewan Auctioneers Hall of Fame last month. Though a plaque in his honour now hangs in the hall of fame in North Battleford, Sask., some of Stroeder's fondest memories come from the 10 years he spent living and auctioneering in Yellowknife.

Following in the footsteps of his father and uncle - both auctioneers - Stroeder's selling career kicked off in Lacombe, Alta., in 1976. Then in 1987 he and his wife Josie moved to Yellowknife to run a janitorial business.

Stroeder, leaving behind the farm land and farm sale auctions of Alberta, might have thought his auction days were over when he moved to the Northwest Territories, until one day when he stumbled upon an auction in downtown Yellowknife.

"There was an auction sale going on at the post office and I was standing in the crowd," Stroeder said.

"This auctioneer was having lots of trouble anyhow."

Stroeder asked the man holding the item up for sale if there were any other auctioneers in Yellowknife.

"He said no, so that's how I got started."

The man running the auction that day was none other than ex-NWT Commissioner and frequent MC Tony Whitford, whom Stroeder would later train.

Up until 1997 when he moved away from Yellowknife, Stroeder's bid call could be heard at just about every charity sale in town.

"They were very shocked when I got started because I was very fast."

Whitford, who still calls auctions from time to time, said Stroeder left his mark in Yellowknife by training the next generation of auctioneers.

"He showed me the ropes, like how to count back from 100

as fast as you can, to get the rhythm," Whitford said.

"Sometimes, people don't always want to share their talents with other people - it's like a business you know - but Mel was never like that."

Yellowknife treated the Stroeders well - his son Tom and two grandsons still live here. Though he and Josie had to leave because of his back troubles, Stroeder misses the city and visits once or twice a year.

"If I could go back, I would go back," he said.

Nowadays Stroeder still does a few charity auctions a year, "so long as the money stays in the community," he says.

The 75-year-old finds time whenever he can to keep his bid calling skills sharp.

"I do it a lot when I'm driving downtown," Stroeder said.

"I might sell your car when you're driving eh?"

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