The first barge of the summer arrived in the capital last weekend to kick off the 10th annual Beer Barge at the Ahmic Air float base.
The barge was only carrying a single case of beer on its voyage from the government docks, navigating around Latham Island to its destination. However, that didn't stop the crowd of nearly 400 people from celebrating its arrival into the night. The barge was, after all, ceremonial as the main attraction of the Yellowknife Historical Society's annual beer barge event.
There's probably 20 or 30 people on it in costumes, usually there's a piper involved and that sort of signifies that the beer barge has arrived and then things get going,” said Walt Humphries, president of the Yellowknife Historical Society. “We'll have a couple of bands playing, Yellowknife bands, and a little bit of storytelling – that sort of thing.”
The barge officially pulled in to the air base at 5:06 p.m., winning Wayne Guy and Simon Hache a few drink tickets for correctly guessing what time the vessel would arrive. Once the barge was docked and the ceremonial first case of beer was unloaded, emcee Loren McGinnis gave opening remarks before handing the stage over to Yellowknife band Baby Brian's Country Club. While the music was playing, patrons were served beer provided by NWT Brewing Co. The celebration evoked a time when there was no road to Yellowknife and barges were the main mode of transportation in and out of the city.
“In the early days, a lot of people boated here and the barges were main supply route up here,” said Humphries. “When I got up here the road was already in and that put a road to the barges.”
Humphries was speaking about the construction of the first highway into town in 1960. The celebration of pre-road Yellowknife has been held for the past decade as a way for the historical society to raise money towards a Yellowknife museum on the site of the old Giant Mine rec hall.
“It's the rec hall that we're going to be turning into a Yellowknife and mining museum to represent the early days because Yellowknife started because of the mines here, so you can't tell the one history without telling the other,” said Humphries.
The historical society is now only a few years away from opening that attraction now that construction has started on the foundation of the building, according to Humphries.
This year's beer barge was held on an afternoon that saw, to the delight of organizers, highs of 24 C following a week of record rainfall.
“I'm used to the north and this stuff comes and goes, but that was a pretty good stretch of crappy weather for this time of year,” Humphries said. “I was looking at the long-term forecast saying, OK, come on; and we've been very lucky over the 10 years that we've held this the gods have always shined on us.”