Tis’ the season to go shopping! We are less than a month away from the big day so I hope you have at least started some of your shopping. If not this post may help you find the time to get out and get started. Not only do local Yellowknife businesses want your business, they also what to make the experience pleasurable. One of the ways they are doing this is by extending their hours.

Shopping locally is one of my favorite things, even though my brain can find a better deal online, my heart has the passion of this city. I’ve said it before, and the one thing I truly love about shopping locally is the relationship building. I rarely run into employees who don’t want to help you and after returning a couple times it is as if your buying something off a good friend.

Both the Centre Square Mall and Yk Centre off a wide range of stores to meat everyone’s needs. Electronics to coffees, computers to mens wear, art to music, whatever it is you are almost guaranteed to find it somewhere.

The Yk Centre, which has a new website, wants to help make this shopping season easy on you, so they have extended their shopping hours:

• Monday – Wednesday: 10am-6pm
• Thursday, Friday: 10am-8pm, Gift Wrapping 6-8pm
• Saturday: 10am-6pm, Gift Wrapping 10am-4pm
• Sunday: 12pm-5pm, Gift Wrapping 4-5pm

Over the last week before Christmas Day the mall will also have special hours. As followed:

• Dec. 21, 22, 23: 10am-8pm, Gift Wrapping 6-8
• Dec.24, 31: 12-4pm
• The Mall will be CLOSED December 25, 26 and January 1, 2010.

The Centre Square Mall will be sticking with its regular hours, but are already extended for you convenience. They will only be closed December 25, and January 1, 2010.

• Monday-Thursday, Saturday: 9:30am-6pm
• Friday: 9:30am-8pm
• Sunday: 12pm-5pm

There are also many store which surround both of these malls that are worth stopping into.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe shopping season. If you know of any extended store hours in the downtown core, please feel free to post them in the comment section below.

Another season of Craft Shows is now over, at least I think, and we are now in the home stretch for Christmas. Only 26 days to go, so I have you are getting your shopping done. The days are getting shorter and will continue to until December 21, so there is something else you can look forward to. Some would say so far this winter we have been blessed with nice weather, and maybe we have, depending on which way you look at it.

As there were 3 craft shows going on on Saturday, Abe Miller, Baker Centre, and at St Pats High School, I didn’t get a chance to go to them all. Although I think it would have been neat to go to the St. Pat’s one, which was put on my the Yk Guild of Arts and Craft. I did manage to go over to the Aven Manor/ Baker Centre one, where there was lots going on. Along with the craft sale, they had a silent auction going on at the Aven Manor with tons of items from all over Yellowknife. They also had the annual Senior Society raffle draw, which was a big event in itself, with the 1st prize being a diamond from Rio Tinto valued at $5000.

Below you will find some photos I happen to grab throughout the afternoon.

Hope everyone had a fun filled holiday seasonish weekend.

I have to know what your thoughts are, Yellowknife. I know the topic is on your mind because not only was it pointed out in one of last weeks issues of the Yellowknifer but and in this weeks editorial. The old Uptown vs. Downtown debate. What is your stance?

It has been said that Uptown is the place to be these days. More parking (so they say), cleaner, less clutter and closer to home for many. Ever since day one I have been on the fence and even if I was for one or the other I probably wouldn’t share it here. So instead I will try and bring to light some of the pros and cons or compare the two.

Parking

When it comes to parking, the downtown core can be a little hectic to find a place. A lot of the time the majority of meter parking is taken, taken by other shoppers and workers, but don’t go blaming them. They need a place to park as well and they have a job to do. There are very few parking lots, only one really comes to mind, the Yk Centre one. Which of course is full and crowded most of the day, but props to the management for trying to enforce the time limit so it is being rotated.

But then again much of this can be the same for uptown. Take for example the Walmart, Marks and Tim Hortons parking lot, now there is a bad design if I ever saw one. It is an accident prone space and over crowded to say the least. Especially when you have a Tim Hortons coffee rush, you end up with a drive through line through Walmarts area. Then there is the fact there is a fenced off closed down gas station smack dab in the middle of it all, but in all there more parking available or you don’t have to pay a dollar an hour.

Distance

This is where I think Downtown dominates. Everything is all within short walking distance, from mall to mall to mall. Not only is it nice to have stores so close to each other, it begins to start to feel like a community. I’m going to use Yk Centre West for example, as I work there, because everyone is right beside each other you start to get the sense of community between the stores, which in the end will benefit you the customer.  Now I can’t vouch for the other malls but I’m sure there is something similar and to me the downtown store seem a little less corporate and a little more local. As you can tell having to walk outside for more than 3 minutes is not something I like, so my uptown shopping experience would be more like the following. Drive up, jump out of car, run in to store, run out, drive to next store, repeat process, because if I have to drive to each place chances are I’m not going to take my time and enjoy it. The benefit distance wise for Uptown stores is how close it is to the majority of residents of Yellowknife. You have both Finlayson/Range Road area and all of behind Walmart as well as Northlands area.

The People

Now I’m really not going to get into this one, but I think everyone who reads this will understand what I mean. Uptown just does not get the same kind of people, purely because it is Uptown and not downtown. The issue of loiters has always been one for the downtown core but there has never been a good solution so that is why I think some business owners have taken the matter into their own hands and moved. Which is understandable, is it not?

Okay Yellowknife, you have heard the arguments, is there anything you have to add? Where are you went it come to this debate? Are you for Downtown or Uptown? One thing I did not add is the new addition to the Uptown core, the Centre Ice Plaza. Do you think the addition of an indoor outlet mall will take a bigger chunk out of Downtown than normal?

A short while ago I had a couple of people, who stumbled upon YkOnline through Google, ask me about food prices here in Yellowknife, so I thought I would write up this post on the matter.

Having grown up here in Yellowknife, I wasn’t to sure as to how food prices actually compared to down south. I started to ask around to get an idea.

Without going into to much depth about it, yes Yellowknife food prices are slightly more than down south, but not as much as you might think. The areas you would see the biggest difference would be areas that are closest to where most foods are prepared. The one thing that I did hear a lot about was the variety and selection and the freshness of produce. Yellowknife is obviously a long way away from anything, being 1500km north of Edmonton, AB, so when it comes to trucking food up here not only does it take time. Which wastes the “fresh” period of certain foods, but it also means there can only be a certain amount of food because of limited space.

Many people have also told me that, no prices are not that much different and I would agree with them. It depends on where you are coming from. I know the prices and quality of food in Northern BC is very much the same as it is in Yellowknife, but most people who would normally ask the question wouldn’t be from that area. They would generally be from bigger places where quality and quantity are taken for granted.

So what I have done to help those wondering about prices here in Yellowknife is taken photos of basic food items from our 3 grocery stores. This is not to compare the prices between the 3, just to compare with prices south of Yellowknife. If enough people request it, I will go back and get the prices of some fruits and vegetables.

Bread

Cheese

Margarine

4L Jug Milk

Eggs

Case of Pop

UPDATE:

There have been a couple questions about vegetables in the north and their prices so while out at the Grocery Store today I took a few more photos. Remember you can click on them to see a large image.

Readers it is your turn. How do you find the price of food in Yellowknife, compared to when you’ve gone shopping in a southern city. Did you even notice the difference? And to those currently south of Yellowknife, do you see a difference? Could you manage with the above prices? Keep in mind Yellowknife(NWT) doesn’t have a territorial/provincial sales tax.

My first memory of Sutherlands Drugs was as a thief.  Yep, I shoplifted a candy bracelet at the behest of the delinquent babysitter of my 6 year old girlfriend.  The statute of limitations has long run out (right, Karan?  Right?).

Fourty years later, with twenty years of Vancouver living in between, I worked up my nerve to walk back in.

While Shoppers is gorgeous, and the Co-op meets most of my grocery needs, Sutherlands has knocked my socks off.

I honestly think it’s the most understated, awesome socially conscious store I’ve ever been in. I can buy…

• My favourite fair-trade coffee, Level Ground
• Tom’s of Maine toothpaste and deodorant (all natural!  no animal testing!)
• Camino (cooperative) chocolate
• Happy Planet juice (the founder of this is now Vancouver’s mayor, after being one of the original organic farmers)
• and an incredible array of intelligent, quality magazines

What amuses and impresses me is that in Vancouver, a shop carrying such good products would be all slick and self-congratulatory.  Sutherlands has this completely humble look and feel as it quietly provides exactly the kinds of products I want to buy.   Hat tip, Sutherlands!

(posted by Nancy Zimmerman)