A couple weeks ago I started hearing rumors that Google Street View was slowly being released or something or rather. People were telling me it was on the iPhone already through Google Earth’s app, others were saying you needed a special app. Whatever the method they told me it doesn’t matter now because Google Street View has been launched completely for Yellowknife.

You are now able to explorer Yellowknife without ever leaving your house. Is that the way the world is going? But seriously now having this available for Yellowknife it gives those interested in visiting or moving to the north the opportunity to explore our streets with out having to spend huge amounts of money.

Unfortunately I had just left town when the Google Car arrived in Yellowknife, so I wasn’t able to get into any of the photos. What a marketing ploy that would have been. Did you try and get into any of the photos, if you did send me where and maybe you’ll get featured here on YkOnline.

I can’t really think of any bad reasons why Yellowknife shouldn’t be mapped online for the world to see, but I’m all for promoting our city and the north online. What do you think the pros and cons are?

Yesterday was a crazy day I don’t really remember what happened. I did manage to do one thing though and that was read the paper. I know it is not what others might do, but the mystery of the UFO caught my eye. Although the UFO is not the reason I am writing this, the Yellowknife Bay regulations is. I am going to keep this short, like really short as I am trying to get this done between jobs.

The issue I want to discuss with you is about the houseboaters. The City of Yellowknife and INAC want to regulate Yellowknife Bay as they believe it is becoming crowded with houseboats, planes and boats. So what was brought up was the issue of restrictions being put on houseboaters or rather those wanting to build a houseboat. At the moment there are no restrictions as far as I’m aware. Regulating the harbor would include such things like speeds, buildings, development, etc.

To go a little off topic, I believe the Yellowknife Bay house boats are a tourist attraction. Where else in Canada will you find a floating house community. It is just flat-out neat.

My question is should there be restrictions on where and how houseboats are built? I realize this post isn’t up to par and I will come back on this when I’m in a better state of mind.

Did you miss the protest yesterday? The protest was against the proroguing of parliament. Thank again to @MediaMentor for getting these videos up on YouTube.

Normally it is a twice a year occasion, where both the Merv Hardy Ferry and the Mackenzie River Ice Road are out of service. What does this mean for Yellowknife? Well we have no road access and when most of are amenities are trucked in, can be a bit of an issue.

If you are new to Yellowknife, you may be thinking “Oh know what are we going to do, everything is going to be really expensive”. Yes and no. You may notice that Wal-mart starts to collect trailers in their lot, which contains stock to keep them going through freeze-up/break-up season. Most big stores like Wal-Mart along with the Grocery Stores try to make sure they are stocked up before hand, but it is hard to guess when the access will be cut off and for how long. Co-op tries to ease the frustration by flying food and supplies over the river and although this costs more the store itself absorbs the cost. Therefore there is not price change on the customers end.

Gas Stations are another service that try to keep topped up as much as possible during these times. Although don’t we have a huge tank farm out behind the Sand Pits?

Since this has happened for many, many years. More like, the entire time Yellowknife has existed, the City has adapted to it and everyone is use to it and for the most part can continue on with there lives undisturbed. Unless of course you had plans to drive south of the Big River. If by chance you are paranoid and want to play it safe, go out to the store now and buy enough food for two weeks and fill up the car.

Actually I don’t think it will even be two week. What I don’t think many people know is that they have been building the Ice Bridge across the river for a couple weeks now. The Ice Bridge is built a KM or so up river which allows them to start construction on it, while also keep a path clear for the ferry. If you ever get a chance to see the ferry operating this time of year it is quite neat. On occasion they put a back hoe onto the ferry to move ice that may be in the path across the river.

Personal my life isn’t affected, sometimes when I’m not paying attention I will miss the occasion altogether, which isn’t a bad thing. Although I’m not affected doesn’t mean you aren’t. Does this inconvenience you in any way? Do you care? What tips would you suggest to people about Break-up/Freeze-up time?

Photo Credit: Geoff Fandrick

There’s no easy way to put this:   I’ve packed on the pounds since I moved up here last February.  Be it the cold creating an out-of-control urgency for carbs or the long, dark nights with my new big screen TV, my wardrobe no longer fits.

“It’s time to take myself in hand” I muttered Jan 1st.  But unlike Vancouver where there’s low-cal everything everywhere and a seawall that begs to be run, Yellowknife looked awfully cold and daunting.  I don’t like exercise at the best of times, but I knew it wasn’t just a case of eating less (although, alas, that’s part of the plan.  Farewell, TimHo’s French Vanilla Capuccinos!  Farewell, snacks, gorgeous, home-made snacks, on every third workstation at work!) … it wasn’t just a case of eating less but of integrating activity into my lifestyle.  *le sigh*  I’d much rather be blogging.

I gingerly considered my options.  I am simply not a gym person.  And that UltraIcyRockDeathByColdExcercise thing going on up here just makes me faint to think of it.   Xnay that. I also get bored easily of any one activity.  So with a buddy in Vancouver, we came up with a list of activity options.  Turns out, there’s a real variety of possibilities!

• squash
• shoveling snow
• swimming with the help of a coworker who coaches
• Wii Fit / Active
• shoveling snow
• power walks
• yoga
• Zumba (talk to Donna Wong.  Exercise has never had such an evangelist!)
• X-country skiing
• Snowshoeing
• shoveling snow
• skating
• Agility with the daschunds (in the spring)
• Running groups at Bodyworks (in the spring)
• exercise podcasts (justifies the big screen tv, non?)
• Riding lessons

So here’s my plan.   I’ve created a set of activities, but only through March.  Then, to prevent boredom, I’ll switch it up to something spring-ier.

For now, I’ve joined the Raquet Club.   I have to give them a shoutout.  It’s the most down-to-earth, cozy kinda/sorta gym I’ve ever been to.  We even have candles in our Nia class, for heaven’s sake!   And people there come in all shapes and sizes (and I contribute to that) and age ranges.  It’s not the yummy mummy lululemon club (which is not to say there aren’t any.  It’s just a nice variety of people.).  Anyway, if I can be comfortable there, I’m guessing anyone can be.  I imagine the same applies to Breakaway and BodyWorks

So it’s Nia Class at the club on Tuesday evenings, and Spin at the club on Saturday mornings.

Thursday, a group of us power-walk at lunch to the hospital and back.  Anyone is welcome to join us – we meet 12:05 in the courthouse lobby.

And last, I’m hoping to learn to snowshoe  (pssst – anyone have a second hand pair you’d like to sell?  I’m too cheap to invest in a new pair til I find out if I like it).

Wish me luck, folks.  And if you have any more ideas, I’m wanting to hear them – leave a comment below.

Here is something worth discussing, the now $0.25 it will cost for a plastic bag from a grocery store, which started January 15, 2010. We all remember when both Extra Foods in town raised the price of these plastic bags from nothing to $0.10, but now all three grocery stores will be charging $0.25 for a bag. That is 1/4 a dollar.

I can understand why this might be done. It is an environmental move to persuade people to switch to tote bags which can be reusable. I can tell you here in my house with have about 15 floating around and probably more in the van if we forget the ones in the house. Over the past year we have collected them from businesses around town giving them away as promotional items. The 2009 Yellowknife Trade Show had them everywhere as well as the YK75 celebrations. I actually like these bags, they are useful in may ways. They are a lot stronger than plastic bags which allows them to be used for many more tasks.

Although there are many uses for the tote bags, I started to think about some of the uses of the plastic bags. Sometimes I don’t think we realize but most of us actually did/do reuse them. The one task that I can think of that will need a new solution is the cleaning of cat litter. I have actually talked to several people who also reused these plastic bags for this task among other things around there house. Another scenario that comes to mind when thinking about the cost of the bags, is how much will we end up paying for bags when we think of something we need at the store while were on our way home. Or when we need to pick up a few items unexpectedly and don’t have our tote bags with us. If I had a quarter every time that happened… well I guess I would be buying a bag with it.

The other thing that was unclear to me up until writing this post was where the money is going. Now that all three grocery stores in town have adapted this new price change you may be thinking that the Territorial Government is behind it, If you did then you are right. I have been told that the Bag Fee goes into ENR’s Environmental Fund. This is the same as the non-refundable part of the beverage container fee. You can find out more information about the Single-Use Retail Bag Program in this PDF, starting on page 32. If you know what the Environmental Fund is for we’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Now over to you, Yellowknife, tote bags have been around for some time now and many use them. Will this transition effect you? If so how? Did you reuse the plastic bags, like many other people, how did you use them? Do you think this is a good thing to enforce over all?

We’d love to hear what others think about this change, leave your opinion in the comment section below.

This is a guest post from Mira Hall, if you’d like to guest post here on YkOnline go to our Contribute Page.

On January 23 Yellowknifers will have the opportunity to join thousands of other Canadians in demonstrating our discontent with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament for the second time during his reign as our national leader.

Other MPs point out that the Prime Minister’s decision will effectively negate work that has been accomplished on 36 bills sitting before the house, and there has been much suspicion voiced that the decision to shut the House down was to hide from the results of an inquiry that was investigating torture of detainees. Of course more cynical members of the public are suspicious that the decision is as simple as the PM wanting to catch the Olympics in Vancouver and not being tied to boring old Ottawa.

The growing number of Canadians joining the Facebook group “Canadians Proroguing Parliament” has been significant enough to make CBC news, and catch the attention of social networkers and  political activists throughout Canada. The challenge issued by CBC however was whether people who were engaged enough to show internet support will be able to translate that engagement to the streets. I am really hoping that Yellowknife will join other communities and show our government, specifically our Prime Minister, that we care enough to take to the streets.

We voted for our MPs because we support the work that they do. We vote for them so that they will represent us in Ottawa. We pay our taxes and as a result their salaries to make sure that our Country functions. Our politicians are publicly elected so that if they do not perform to our standards, we are able to remove them.

Unfortunately Prime Minister Harper has chosen to stop any of our elected people from being able to work effectively in the positions that we voted them into. We need to send a clear message that we will not accept a government who sees halting all work as a leadership approach.

Scattering when the lights come on is something the creepy crawlies in the basement do, not a strategy for publicly elected officials. So please join us on January 23rd outside the Federation of Labour Building at 11:30, and lets tell the people who we elected to GET BACK TO WORK!

I was reading the headline last week about the issue of building float plane docks on Kam Lake and I thought I would run it past everyone here online. I was actually kind of surprised to read that there was any issue at all, mind you I don’t know the exact area that the docks are proposed to go, nor all the details.

From what I gathered, the residents that own dog kennels do not want the float planes and docks to affect their business, which is understandable. What I need clarification to is how this would affect them, I think I may have skimmed over this in the article. Thinking about how these planes and docks would affect the dogs baffles me, because the planes would be there in the summer and the dogs would be on the small park of Kam lake they use in the winter. I don’t often see dog sleds going over Kam Lake in the summer. As for how the dogs would react to having planes taking off one or two times a day, I don’t think it would be a big deal. I once knew a resident of Kam Lake who ran dogs, but also on occasion would land his plane at the dock in front of his house. As well as the opposite, he would often have his dogs live in the yard of his office on back bay and the planes didn’t seem to affect them. I would look at it the same as if I moved to the Kam Lake area, although I wouldn’t be use to all the barking at first, I would get use to it.

At the same time we must think about the options float plane owners have. There is always the over crowded back bay, right? There are not many places for those who are just flying up for a visit or want a more permanent place. Yellowknife Bay is out of the question, with Air Tindi, Arctic Sunwest and houseboats all over the place, there definitely isn’t room.

Over all I think Kam Lake is the next prime spot for a float plane marina, just because the area is more developed around the water. I guess we could consider Long Lake, at the end near the highway, but that seems too close to the actual airport. What do you think will work? Could the dog kennels and float plane work together on one lake? What are the pros and cons? Is there another suitable place for a float place dock?

Photo credit to Jspitfire on Flickr, who ironically had this photo of a float plane on Kam Lake.

The Lube-X building that has been under construction for a while now has now been revealed to the public. Since the beginning of winter there have been giant tarps around the building to keep the heat in. This was done so that the building could be completed through the winter season.

When I spoke to someone at Polar development, the owners of the property, they guessed the new oil changing business would be operational come the end of January sometime. You can see a video and picture below.

Without getting into opinions to much about parking and traffic flow of the area, I am curious to know what everyone’s thoughts are about Lube-X. Do you think it will succeed?

The City of Yellowknife is proposing to increase the parking meter fee by $.25 on the dollar. So for 1 hour you would pay $1.25 rather than the old $1 an hour. Mayor Gord Van Tighem has some good points for defending the increase, “We think that $1.25 from $1 is not a huge increase and it still keeps us below Whitehorse, which is the one I looked at as a comparison.” and “Parking meter increases that go in, half of that goes to the downtown development committee and we give it out as grants.”

Readers, residents, workers, businesses, I want to know what your thoughts on this are. It does not seem to be that big of deal to most. To be honest, most of the time I drive downtown in the middle of the day I can never find a parking spot, which is another issue in its self. I can see how it might be a little less convenient now that you have to carry that “extra” quarter, but then again is that really a big deal.

How do you feel about how the money is spent? Although I do not know much more than what the Mayor said to NNSL, which is where those quotes come from, I was pleased to find out that at least half stays downtown and goes towards grants. That is something I will need to look into as it spikes my interest and I’m sure not many other people know about. Although I’m sure it will be used as an excise if it hasn’t already, but do you think the $.25 increase will encourage more drivers to walk, car pool or use public transit?

Please share your thoughts and join in the discussion in the comment section below.