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Guy Quenneville
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Squatterz' rights
Squatterz Books and Curiosities will be closed for the entire month of January as owner Daron Letts lets loose with some creative renovations.
Among the additions to the store will be a children's room replete with puppet show accessories (Letts will be organizing workshops on puppetry, too) and a room exclusively devoted to Northern music.
"I'm also going to be stocking new books again," he said. "I hope the split between old and new books to be about 60/40."
The new books will cover areas such as gender, politics, labour and ecology.
Doycon gets hospital contract
Yellowknife construction company Doycon Northern Inc. has won the tender for a construction project inside the triage area of the Stanton Territorial Hospital.
The project, which will cost nearly $200,000, will be a new triage room for the hospital and will require the efforts of two workers.
The project provides a unique working environment for Doycon employees.
"We're actually working inside the hospital," said Mike Hilchey, project manager for Doycon. "So we have to contain our entire work area, to prevent the spread of any sickness."
Family affair
If you're wondering who the new faces were behind the desk at Northern Souvenir Gifts and Embroidery during the holiday season, look no further.
Owners Tom and Sue Tram welcomed their two sons, Michael and John, to Yellowknife, and quickly put them to work.
"Oh, yes, they're helping out," said Sue. "They come every year."
Michael has noticed that holiday-themed tea is a hot ticket item at the store.
Price increases, stat!
Statistics Canada recently released figures indicating that during the month of November, the Yellowknife all-items consumer price index was 3.1 per cent higher than a year earlier.
That's above the national average increase of 2.5 per cent, but lower than Edmonton's increase of 5.1 per cent and Whitehorse's 4.1 per cent.
The data-collecting agency said the overall price increase in Yellowknife could be attributed to two things: higher costs for shelter, which climbed nine per cent over the past year, and higher costs for transportation, which rose 1.9 per cent.