The mining business has been critical to Yellowknife's rise over the years as gold, then diamonds, either directly or indirectly paved the streets and built the buildings.
But there’s a problem – all mines go bust eventually.
Now, with the looming closure of the territory's diamond mines, and with no other mine on the horizon even close to the same scale, the city is eyeing a pleasant and somewhat surprising boom in tourism as a potential economic stabilizer into the future.
Overall, tourism is but a drop in the bucket compared to the mining sector as far as economic importance goes. The mining sector contributes about $1.35 billion to the territorial Gross Domestic Product compared to about $90 million for tourism. But tourism is generally less volatile than mining and it's an industry ordinary people can break into without having to sink in millions of dollars to get started.
It's also has high returns. As Deneen Everett, the executive director of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce points out, every dollar invested in tourism generates a $67 in return.
And unlike diamonds and gold, tourists are a renewable resource. Residents and visitors alike can enjoy the festivals, museums and other amenities that are essential for a thriving tourism industry. And best of all, they won’t pollute our waterways with arsenic or crack open our hills like nuts in search of precious ore.
It is therefore welcome news, after nearly a decade of percolating through the territorial government bureaucracy, that legislation is coming to allow municipalities to charge an accommodation levy on hotel rooms and bed and breakfasts.
This would allow Yellowknife to collect on a surcharge of up to five per cent on bills for these rooms.
The money would fund the city’s Destination Marketing Organization, a group that would be responsible attracting more visitors.
This is an important step because, even though Yellowknife has been blessed by a winter aurora tourism market that sprang from practically nowhere 20 years ago, there remains a dearth of tourism facilities and services.
There is little signage in Mandarin or Japanese, nor a cultural centre to showcase the Dene people of the area, and the visitor's centre remains an out-of-the-way cubby hole in the basement of city hall. And that's because the old one is sinking into a swamp.
One needs to look no further than Whitehorse to see how it preserves its tourism industry.
Founded on extractive industries, the city has developed a diverse economy, including a vibrant tourism sector, an important element of which is a downtown visitor information centre.
The place has a full range of services, including individual interactive programs, films, brochures, maps and displays. A promotional film “As the Crow Flies” is shown every thirty minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour.
So Yellowknife needs to do some catching up – and some sprucing up – to hang on to our tourism dollars and grow some more.
The time to get going is now, not the week after the city gets pelted with a round of mine closures that knock a 30 per cent hole into the territorial economy.
We hope MLAs don't take their time passing this very important piece of legislation.