You may have seen it while wondering through the Book Cellar, a book simply entitled, Yellowknife. I know I have, I have even picked it up and flipped through the pages on occasion, but never gone any further than that. That just maybe because I never seem to find time to read or I just rather read content online, either way I maybe going to get it now.

Blogger and Novel Reviewer, Tricia, of My Novel Reviews has had the opportunity to read this book and has graciously written a review of it. In the first half of her post she explains what the book is about, the storyline, what is involved and what to expect. Into the second half she begins her review, talking about a character, a drifter if you will and the quirky mysteries of the north.

This quirky novel begins with Danny crossing the border into Yellowknife. He is a drifter, and when he enters Yellowknife, the reader drifts with him into a land populated by eccentric characters, where anything goes.

More than the fact I haven’t found time to read the book, I think I have been hesitant. I am afraid it may squre my view of Yellowknife, although Tricia does mention that our very own Yellowknife Blogger, John Mutford, will defend the book. If that is the case, I guess I will have to go pick myself up a copy. If you are still unsure about the book, you can read more about it on BookCrossing.com. If you have read the book, please share you thoughts with us below.

UPDATE: When I read that John, defended the book I look for his article on the topic but couldn’t find anything. Apparently I didn’t look will enough. As you can see in the comments, he posted the link the National Post article he wrote on the book. I thought I would also point out the first paragraph, because it is something I too believe is the case:

There’s Yellowknife and there’s Yellowknife. One’s a northern city most Canadians haven’t visited, the others a novel most Canadians haven’t read. You should do both.

Whether you’re reading this on New Year’s Eve or in the New Year, I want to wish you a happy New Year. I look forward to all the good things to come in 2010 and I hope to grow with you. Like I have been mentioning there are some new things coming to YkOnline, that I am very excited about, so stay tuned for those.

2009 was a great year, for starters it was the year YkOnline started, Yay! But other than that it was a lot of fun. There are many things to look back on in Yellowknife this past year. Some not so good, but I mainly covered the good things. Here are some of those “Good” posts to look back on from 2009.

• Road work that happened in 2008, happened again.
• Yellowknife’s 75 Anniversary Celebrations.
• Google Car comes through Yellowknife.
• Folk on the Rocks 2009 and Rock the Folks.
• Municipal Election Directory.
• Yellowknife Dump Fire
• Election Results.
• I came back to town and started video.
• Javaroma changed owners and brought back WiFi.
• Yellowknife got its 4th major Airline.
• The Apple iPhone came to the North – I got a little to excited.
• Annual Art Expo.
• 2010 Olympic Torch came through Yellowknife.
• Yellowknife’s local radio station CJCD turned 30 years old.
• Mistaken Blasting Earthquake.
• A Yellowknife Morning.
• Yellowknife Christmas Lights and City Hall.

There you have it, some of the better post of 2009 from YkOnline. Starting May all the way to Last weeks Christmas Lights post. I hope everyone has a Safe and happy New Year. If you have a favorite post from 2009 that isn’t mentioned above, link to it in the comments.

PLEASE NOTE* YkOnline.ca will be going into maintenance mode starting about 12pm January 1, 2010 – January 2, 2010. We will be setting up the NEW SITE DESIGN. We hope it is better, faster and an altogether nicer user experience.

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 a Sunday, different people do different things. Some go to church, others sleep in, I on the other hand eat. I had the opportunity to try out Coyotes Sunday Brunch. Coyotes Bar & Grill might be Yellowknife’s only self titled Steak and Seafood joint, but that doesn’t stop them from offering one of the best breakfast/lunch/totally awesome buffets around. Then again I am probably being bias because I have not yet tried another one, but nonetheless it was good.

From the look of the outside of the building some may be surprised when walking through the doors. Many may not know but this restaurant, and bar, moved into this building after a Dairy Queen closed down years ago. Once we entered we were greeted right away, seated and asked out drink selection. The seating area is dived into 3 spaces, which is nice and gives you a little more sense of privacy.

The buffet area was packed, not with people, but with food. They had everything, and that is only half an exaggeration. Offering something that will satisfy everyone is pretty hard, but I think Coyotes does it well. They had your basic breakfast items, pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs and my personal favorite Eggs Benedict.

I haven’t encountered many places that offer Shrimp for lunch let alone breakfast, but people were eating it. To go along with the shrimp there was a wide selection of pastas and salads with all the toppings.

In this corner of the buffet area there was two things going on. To the right they had 4 main dishes, perogies and sausage, chicken, lasagna and crab legs. Yes indeed I did say crab legs, although I did not try any. To the right is where the owner, Ed But, would make you up eggs, however you would like with what ever fixings you would like. When an owner of a business is right there working with the customers it means a lot to me. It shows they are willing to do the work and make sure you are enjoying yourself. I must also recognize the waitresses who were constantly going around to make sure everyone had everything they needed.

Of course I had to go up 2 or 3.. okay maybe 4 times, but it is not often I am able to get out to a buffet this good.

One thing that shocked me about the buffet was the selection of desserts, I could not believe they had an entire table full. I had to contain myself and only take a slice of Triple Chocolate Cake.

In all I was very pleased with the buffet and restaurant over all. The only thing going in that worried me was the price to food quality ratio. Once I saw the amount, selection and quality of food that worry went away. The price per person for the buffet was $23 and although this is a little much for me, I can understand why. I will definitely be returning, just maybe not as frequently as I want.

Have you ever tried the Sunday Brunch Buffet? Let everyone know how your experience went below in the comments.

On a very snowy Saturday afternoon, my brother and I, ventured to the Vietnamese Noodle House on Franklin Ave. The Noodle House is the one of the older and more rustic restaurants in Yellowknife. At first glance you could almost say the building is closed down, but you’d be wrong. To a guest of Yellowknife this restaurant wouldn’t be the first choice, but to the folks like myself, who have been around for a while, it is one of my preferred places.

When we entered the restaurant at lunch time on Saturday we were the only ones in the place, but don’t be fooled. From Monday to Friday this restaurant is packed full at lunch times, so my best advice would be to call ahead or show up early.

One of the unique things about this restaurant is the ordering process. All items on the menu, which includes extensive Vietnamese foods and many Western foods, have numbers. So instead of ordering by name, you order by number.

My favorite is #77, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. Your task, if you choose to except is to find out what it is. Another notable feature about the Noodle House is the speed.  Your order, no matter how busy, is almost guaranteed to be served within 10 minutes, which for those in a hurry at lunch is a magnificent feature.

When it come to pricing, it is very comparable. For an average lunch meal you will be looking at around $13, which is decent. The food is unique, the atmosphere is unique and the place is definitely worth checking out. At least once.

Have you been there? Let everyone know what you thought?

Well I suppose this is past due as I have been going on about this website now for almost two weeks. So this is my semi-official review of the site, filled with my opinions, suggestions and comparisons. I introduced YkClassifieds.com back in our Online Classified War post and now I want to go over some things with the site so lets begin.
I want to start with the Domain Name and the Site Name, as they are what everyone will know and refer to them as. YkClassifieds.com is a pretty much bang on name; it won’t confuse, mislead, or deceive you. You would assume that the “yk” is an abbreviation of Yellowknife, which it is. Most of the Yellowknifers I know refer to the city by that name, then the word classifieds, which can’t really be mistaken for anything else either. What I have noticed that has nothing to do with YkClassifieds itself, is that a lot of Yellowknife websites have taken up using “yk” in their names, mine included. We have YkCity.ca, YkTrader.com, YkOnline.ca, YkOffroad, and than there are clubs and sports teams using it as well. I’m just wondering if it is getting over used, what do you think?
What I can’t fully understand with the site name is why it is called YkClassifieds but yet is advertised as a Northern Classified site. I just went over that the name is good for a Yellowknife Classified site as it clearly was directed to that market.  So why if intended for all of the North or NWT still use YkClassifieds.com, why not change the domain? I have registered enough domains in my day to know that they are only around $10.00 a name and easy to get. If this site is marketed outside of Yellowknife, I think it wouldn’t take to well as people would see the name and automatically consider it just another website for Yellowknife.

Once in the site you will see a very Craigslist or Kijiji kind of look. You see all the categories and all the sub-categories right in front of you. Personally I don’t like this look, my eyes go crazy trying to read everything, and I would much prefer a drop menu or how eBay does it. You choose the category, sub-category, and so on until you are where you want to browse threw ads. I don’t think this can be changed as that is probably how the script is set up, but I feel like I am constantly trying to get back to a none existent home page, then again I could just be to use to the way YkTrader works.

With the navigation of the site fresh in your mind I want to continue talking about it. I am assuming that the site wide navigation bar is the one in the left sidebar but I feel it is lacking and needs some serious reconsideration. First we have the HOME tab, which is fine and only makes sense to have. But then we have Post Ad, Post Event, and Post Image for the next 3, which I don’t like. I don’t think we a need the 3 of them always showing. What I think would make more sense is to have a general “Post” tab and when the mouse rolls over said tab a pop out menu slides out with more options. Yes, this is similar to how YkTrader does it but I think it works and gives a cleaner, sleeker look.  Before I move on to the next tab I have to wonder what exactly is the “Post Image” for, there is no explanation as to why you should post a picture. You don’t know where it is going or what it will be used for. Huh.
On to the next tab Help/FAQ, which is essential to any site like this. So having it in the navigation bar is a good thing but what is currently on that page is another story. There are only 6 questions or how-tos on the page so far, all with very brief explanations. I don’t think someone who has no idea of what they are doing would be able to figure it out. The key to any FAQ site is to explain how to do something in the utmost detail so that even the most Internet illiterate person can figure it out.
The Events Photo tab, which is next down the list, is probably the one tab I shouldn’t talk about right now, as it goes nowhere. You click it that tab, see where it takes you. You end up on the creator’s photo site at a gallery that the public is locked out of. Now I am all for self-promotion and new features but really, a dead link? Wait until everything is working properly before adding it to an active site, even if you add the tab and just have it loop back to the homepage would be fine with me but don’t send people on a wide goose chase for nothing.
The Contest tab is the last tab I am going to talk about, as the My Account seems pretty self-explanatory and needed. The Contest tab is a good idea if the site is going to be holding contests frequently but that doesn’t appear to be the case at the moment. The tab is linked to a PDF and I’m sorry but I can’t stay when PDF’s are used for stupid things like this. Don’t get me wrong, I like PDF’s but you should only use them when needed. For forms, e-books, newsletters, etc. not something like brief contest details. The details should be right on the site as that is where the contest is being held.

Well it seems I have lagged this Review on for longer than I anticipated, so I am going to stop it here and make this a 2 part series. This being Part 1. I would like to encourage all my readers to comment below on YkClassifieds, do you agree with me? Don’t you? What would you suggest?