It was brought to my attention that CBC’s hit show Dragon’s Den announced the dates it will be coming to Yellowknife. A couple weeks ago CBC announced that it would be coming to Yellowknife but didn’t release the dates. Read all about it in the press release below.

Do you have a hot new invention or the next million-dollar idea? Think you have the money-making chops to take on the savviest business tycoons in the country? Then DRAGONS’ DEN wants to hear from you!

The DRAGONS’ DEN production team will be in Yellowknife scouting for Season Six of the hit series on CBC Television. The show gives aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their businesses to a panel of wealthy Canadian moguls for the chance to earn real cash and real investment – from the Dragons’ own pockets!

Open auditions are taking place on Thursday, March 25th from noon – 7 pm at the Yellowknife Inn, 5010 49th St, in the Zinc Room.

No experience is necessary – just be ready to pitch your business in under five minutes. If you can convince producers you’re ready for the limelight, you could be invited to face Dragons when the upcoming season is filmed in Toronto.

And as extra incentive this year — entrepreneurs with an eco-friendly business, invention or idea could qualify for a $100,000 Greenvention prize from Sun Chips.

Please apply online starting March 1st and bring your completed application form to the auditions. More details can be found on the show’s website at http://cbc.ca/dragonsden.

DRAGONS’ DEN airs on CBC Television at 8 pm Wednesday nights. Full episodes and web extras can be viewed on the DRAGONS’ DEN website.

Knowing a fair number of people in this town, I know this is an excellent opportunity. We here in Yellowknife are privileged to have so many bright minds living among us. If you think you have what it takes to be on the show or know someone who should be make sure you’re at the auditions.

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.

It looks innocuous, doesn’t it? and it sounds kinda … classy … Centre for the North. Even the body that’s pulling it together has a neutral sound to it: Conference Board of Canada.

But being a money coach in my past life, I’m always interested in following the money (and those of you who have watched the Best.Series.Ever, The Wire, will have had that emblazoned on your brain too). And when I followed the money on this, here’s what I found at the end of the document:

Funding of the Centre
This Centre will be funded by a variety of organizations from the private and public sectors. We are asking each investor to commit for a five-year period.

There are three levels of investment:

Champion investor ($100,000 annually)

Champion investors will be deeply involved with Conference Board staff in the drawing up of the Centre’s research plan and meeting agendas. These investors will be part of the Centre’s Steering Committee and will play a leadership role in Centre meetings.

Lead investor ($50,000 annually)
Lead investors will help the Conference Board and Champion investors develop the research plan and review the research in progress. They will also suggest meeting topics and be invited to participate in Centre meetings.

Participant investor ($25,000 annually)
Participant investors will be invited to attend Centre meetings and will have access to the detailed research findings. They will also provide input on the choice of research and meeting topics.

So. People willing to cough up between $25K = $100K every year get to

• set the agenda
• choose which questions get asked and which don’t
• and have access to the research findings.

Anyone else find it hard to believe that the Conference Board of Canada will live up to their stated commitment of being:

• “The foremost independent, not-for-profit, applied research organization in Canada.”
• “Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests.”

I call bullshit. But I’m guessing the final document and research findings will be presented with little mention of who actually drove the whole project.

I dunno. I guess I thought we voted in MLAs every few years to, you know, set the agenda and direction for the north. Clearly I am mistaken.

On Friday I had to be at the airport to pick up some people coming to Yellowknife for a week so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the newly opened Bushpilot Cafe.

I was told the prices would be a bit more expensive than the old Airport restaurant and I was half expecting them to be as it is owned by Chef Pierre, whose restaurants normally have a higher class. But upon arriving and looking at the menu I was satisfied with the prices and found them acceptable.

Like the old restaurant the breakfast menu isn’t that large of selection so I decided to go all out and get the Bushpilot Breakfast. The price seemed reasonable for what I was going to get.

At $11.95 for the Bushpilot Breakfast I got 3 eggs however I liked, 2 pieces of toast, hashbrowns, 2 sausages, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 slices of ham, a bit of fruit and 2 damn good blue berry pancakes. As you can see it was so much food, they gave it to me on two plates.

The food was excellent to my standards, which are not very high at the moment when it comes to breakfast foods. Considering I love breakfasts such as this one, I would recommend this over other diner breakfasts in town. Although I never normally get this much food and had a hard time finishing it, I felt I got my moneys worth. Mind you I didn’t have a close look at the menu to compare the other prices but this was the most expensive breakfast item. You could almost consider this a meal for two and having the two plates makes it easy to share.

In all I liked the food and being able to watch the planes from through the window is just a bonus to add to the atmosphere. So if you like good breakfast food or are a fan of diner food, I definitly recommend you go check out the Bushman Pilot Cafe

Got a review of a local business or restaurant, why not have it posted here on YkOnline. Just register by clicking “Register” at the bottom of the sidebar, login and write. Make sure to link back to your blog if you have one.

Well it seems as the first day of Yellowknife’s Greatest Indoor Show comes to a close it can be called a success. Constantly throughout the day there was a line up going out the door of people waiting to get it. The place seemed to be at capacity most of the day as I was always arm in arm with me person beside me. I was able to meet a lot of wonderful new people some who I have been in contact with via the web and was finally able to put a face to the name and of course I ran into old faces as well. This is Yellowknife after all.

There were many great companies set up at the Show, some new, some old, everyone with a smile on their face non the less.

First Air was out in the front lobby set-up along an entire wall. They had a chance to win a trip for 2. What you had to do was guess a number between 1 and 99. Good luck. They also had Dave Brosha at one end of their booth showing off some of his amazing photography.

"You can just reserve that spilt drink, they'll be to drunk to know"

BAM Gone

The Shamwow guy or actually Miracle Shammy guy was amazing as well. I don’t think I have ever heard someone talk as fast and as clear as he did.

This Shammy is purely amazing. It is one thing to see it on TV but to see it in real life, I felt like throwing money at him. He made some excellent points throughout his presentation that not only do these Shammies soak up more liquid than any other cloth but also they are reusable and are good up to 2 year. Green is in, so get your Shammy now. Two bundles for $25, beats anywhere to boot.

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You know as much as I enjoy reading all the blogs and articles online I enjoy sitting down and picking up a newspaper. New Media may be taking over but old media still has something about it I like.

Now although some people have there “opinions” on the Yellowknifer and sometimes I do too, I still enjoy reading our little local paper. Today was no different, there were many articles in the paper today that were of interest. Mr. Humphries shared his thoughts on how we can avoid a recession by opening all dumps nation wide to salvagers. Shelagh Montgomery wants to take down the oil sands and make everyone walk everywhere let Alberta know that Yellowknife wants to halt the oil sands production with out thinking about all the jobs and money that would be lost. Then we had a bunch of other things, Rock & Ice Ultra, Headframe discussions, Caribou drinking Beer Caribou Carnivals Beer Garden and so on.

The one thing I love reading in a paper is the columns and opinions of people. I guess that just comes from being a blogger and doing the same thing. Reading someones views on something is not only informative but it give you a different perspective on the topic. Whether I agree with them or not I think about it. I go back to the quote I had in my last post. I write to not only entertain but to engage readers in discussion and make them think. That is what I want to be able to do as a writer blogger.

As I finished the paper and thought about all the things I had just read and who wrote them I only wondered what happened to the “South of 20″ column. The weekly article that was write by a student or a person under the age of 20 hence the name South of 20. I said that I loved reading peoples columns and if there is one thing I love reading more than that it would be articles writen by young people. I think young people have more to offer than most think, I just think they don’t get the chance to say it. This is also why I try and encourage my friends to blog and vioce their opnions. Everyone has something to say they just need to find the right place to say it.

My thoughts or opinions on some of the articles in Wednesdays April 15 Yellowknifer:

With all the hype in the paper this past week about Fishing Licenses I am amazed they missed one. One what? One location that also still sells Fishing Licenses. Everyone seems to be complain about how now only 2 government offices sell them and are only open 9-5 on weekdays as well as Co-op which also has select hours. Well I have news for you. Shell Gas Station located in a highly populated traffic area sells them too and oh guess what, they are open 24 hours of the day and all 7 days of a week. They even have a huge sign on there door with BOLD letters that says “We Sell Fishing Licenses” and they have always sold them. Last year I took upwards to 30 American Hunters there. No not all at once but when they came into Yellowknife late one night and left early the next morning it was the best (and only) place to go. So now you know.

Okay Mr. Dan Wong I will give you the fact you’re standing up for what you believe in and I by no means support the scholarship cuts but it has happen and yes it sucks. We need more positive thinking. I realize you can’t afford going to school for 6 years to but I have to ask if you are willing to spend that amount of time at school (using the government’s money, with no guarantee you will stay in the north) shouldn’t you be willing to take out a loan or line of credit to pay for it yourself. Once again I have to say that I believe if you want something and you want it bad enough you would be willing to do what it takes to achieve it. I’m sure you have an opinion on the matter, I want to know.