For the latest installment in our Leonard Willing historical photo series, Leonard’s nephew Glen Willing recently gave EDGE several photos offering a glimpse into Yellowknife’s early aviation history. The photo above shows Leonard himself, an assayer at Con and Negus Mines between 1938 and 1951, standing next to a Junkers W 34. These all-metal German
Vi Beck at the races, 1981. Vi was one of Yellowknife’s driving forces for many years and is remembered by many for her hard work in the community. Unfortunately, Vi passed away in 2002.
The final residents of the Giant Mine townsite had to leave their homes in 2004/2005. The townsite had been home to dozens of families since the 1950s.
Left to right: Nico Cullen, Jazzanne Braden, Britta Mayo, Kathleen Smith, Elora Braden, Miranda Booth and Maya MacGregor.
Bill Carpenter at Bowspringer Kennel, 1989. Bill established the Canadian Eskimo Dog Foundation in the 1970s to bring the breed back from the brink of extinction.
The epic stilt races of the Woodyard in the 1970s: left to right, Lou Rocher, John Rocher, Matt King, Gary Vaillancourt, Dave Cox and Cynthia Brown.
Walter was one of the Woodyard’s many commercial fishermen in the 1970s and ’80s.
Cynthia Brown, Gary Vaillancourt, Greig Upton and John Alexander swap tales in the spring sunshine on the deck of John’s houseboat, which was one of the first to be built in Yellowknife Bay.
Ron and Agnes ran Captain Ron’s B&B for many years on Latham Island near the causeway. He was called Captain Ron because of his tour boat, the “Naocha”, which was one of the first tour boats to ply the waters of Yellowknife Bay.
Jonas Paulette of Ndilo, 1977. Jonas was a well-respected staker and line-cutter who worked across the North. This photo was taken at Thor Lake, east of Yellowknife, in the early days of its development.
John Larson was a well-known miner and driller in early Yellowknife. He lived in a small shack in Willow Flats until shortly before his death in the 1990s.
Burwash, across the bay from the city, was the site of the first gold discovery in Yellowknife Bay in 1934. A small mine grew up there, but was abandoned after a few years. The buildings remained on the site until the 1980s, when the last of them was torn down.
At the beginning of a lot of things: Yellowknife in 1948 It was a cold evening in February 1948, when Patrick Bourke stepped out of a taxi on Franklin Avenue and onto a forgotten page in Yellowknife’s history. 1948 was a watershed year for the northern boom town. The war was just over and miners
