SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
She was a familiar sight.

A lanky, mixed breed border collie/whippet brazenly crossing streets in Old Town and downtown with an almost reckless disregard for her own safety and an obvious ignorance of the fundamentals of traffic laws.

Mimbie, the freewheeling dog shown here, was often seen roaming around Old Town and the downtown without her owner Matthew Grogono. - photo courtesy of Matthew Grogono

Outfitted with a collar and seemingly allergic to a leash, the infamous Mimbie was regarded as a nuisance to some who knew her as NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), but to others she remained a symbol of dogged determination and survival.

To her owner, Matthew Grogono, she was the blue-eyed best friend who he rescued from the pound on Christmas Day in 2001.

His four-legged friend died Jan. 12, not on the streets where she made her claim to fame, but in the comfort of Grogono's houseboat.

"She went for a little walk about and came back (to her bed) and I said 'I get it, you want a Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I'll phone your teacher and let her know'," Grogono recalled. "That was the last thing I ever said to her."

By all accounts, Mimbie was a free spirit with her own agenda.

"I grew up in the country and I just couldn't bring myself to tie her up," explained Grogono.

"She was a sled dog and she needed to run. There was no way I could ever tire her out."

Mimbie had a set of regular haunts she would always check in on during her travels, including the post office, A&W, the dumpster behind Boston Pizza and even the Gold Range.

"Somehow she would always know when it was Friday night, and if she was given half a chance, she would piss off and go to the Gold Range," said Grogono.

In Old Town she earned a reputation as the dog who would nonchalantly jaywalk at all hours of the day.

"People used to complain about her roaming around, particularly in Old Town on the road but I said, 'look, she does more for controlling traffic than any living being. If you're driving too fast and you can't stop for a dog, then you can't stop for a pedestrian,'" Grogono said.

While motorists might not have had much time for her, Mimbie had a way of endearing herself to strangers so long as they weren't, as Grogono put it, "aggressive alpha-males".

"She was a very sensitive dog and she had a thing for sympathetic soft-hearted people," he said, adding she "wasn't a petting dog."

In particular, Grogono said she was very popular with the regulars who hang out downtown, who nicknamed her Flower.

"They loved her because of her ability to evade the bylaw," Grogono said.

Mimbie's vagabond lifestyle was enough to make her regular feature on the SPCA's Facebook page with residents often posting photos of her, concerned that she had escaped or was underfed. However, it was only a matter of time until someone would chime in upon seeing the picture and say "that's just Mimbie."

"I'm sad to hear that she passed," said Nicole Spencer, president of the NWT SPCA.

Spencer, who only ever saw Mimbie in person once near the Explorer Hotel, said it was incredible she survived so long without getting hit by a car or picked up by someone.

"Maybe she was a lucky dog but maybe she just a really smart dog," she said.

Whether it was through luck or street smarts, Mimbie was able to make it through her entire life without being returning to the pound where Grogono rescued her from 13 years ago. The feat is all the more astounding because Grogono ended up adopting Mimbie when he went to retrieve his previous dog, who had been nabbed by bylaw while roaming the streets on Christmas Day in 2001.

Despite her nomadic lifestyle, Mimbie always knew how to find her way home, even after she was no longer able to hear her name being called due deafness in her later years.

"Believe it or not, the way I would call her is I would close my eyes and my mouth and call her as loud as I could in my mind and she would show up within five minutes," said Grogono.

"How else are you going to call a deaf dog."

Now that Mimbie is no longer around to answer his call, Grogono said he plans to scatter her ashes on Joliffe Island, where Grogono would regularly drop her off for one last run on his way back to his houseboat during the warm summer months.