Cabin Radio’s tour of Yellowknife Christmas lights

Cabin Radio sent its most battle-hardened Christmas reporters out on the streets to judge Yellowknife’s festive flourishes for 2018.

Our reporting team kept a Yule log of the city’s finest, and most fascinating, decorating efforts from private homes and the occasional local business.

On this page, you can check out some of the displays that caught our collective eye – updated with a selection of your own photos, too!

Did we miss a classic – or a disaster? You can always let us know by messaging photos to our Facebook page or emailing them to news@cabinradio.ca (because this is, obviously, news).

And if all this Yellowknife-centric nonsense is leaving you feeling left out in another NWT community, we’d love to receive your festive photos too.

Well done to everyone who took the time to throw together a display and make your northern community look that bit more special this holiday season. We hope you all have a wonderful time (and details of our festive programming follow shortly!).

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We begin on Moyle Drive, where – for reasons not immediately apparent – a triceratops is celebrating Christmas. This is one of at least three inflatable dinosaurs spotted during our tour.

Inflatables are definitely in this year, although it’ll take some doing to beat the sheer size of this blow-up Santa occupying a front yard on Haener Drive.

On occasion, it appears as though keeping the inflatables suitably supported and angled was… tricky. Or we may have just turned up at nap time. This house on Magrum Crescent also deploys a projector to shine the Paw Patrol and Avengers logos on its garage door, which is a crossover we would definitely watch.

Abominable? Deranged? Simply misunderstood? A thoughtful little display in front of a house on Kasteel Drive.

It’s hard to find an angle which does justice to the sheer amount going on in this Gwilliam Crescent front yard.

Maybe it’s because he’s claustrophobic. Maybe it’s because he’s out of the spotlight. But one thing is for sure…

… Santa does not look thrilled.

We move on to Wong Court, where this house impressed the judges with its chemistry between the understated decoration of the home itself and the beautifully lit trees.

It is difficult to conceive of ways in which this Santa is fitting down any Yellowknife chimneys. No wonder he’s stuck outside, thumbing a ride on Rivett Crescent.

Our notes for Dagenais Drive read: “Mental light show.” Worth seeing it for yourself if you get the chance. This house definitely wanted our attention.

There is a subcategory of Cabin Radio’s festive scoresheet devoted to outdoor nativity scenes, and this one on Finlayson Drive did very well indeed: note the marvellous, judicious use of a projector to put the northern lights in the ‘sky’ behind the nativity and beneath the guiding star.

These snowmen a little farther down Finlayson Drive are the essence of the word ‘homemade’ and demanded inclusion in our guide (though they didn’t demand it forcefully enough to warrant standing up).

Meanwhile, across town, here’s the well-lit, wintry scene outside a home in the Grace Lake subdivision.

By the time we reached downtown Yellowknife, the inflatables had found time to regroup. This 54 Street menagerie includes everything from a Minion to a Christmas tree with glowing eyes and a mouth (and a surprising variety of facial expressions).

Under a blanket of snow, this truck on Lundquist Road makes an elegant addition to the scene.

On Wiley Road, the elegant red-and-white illuminations outside this property gave us pause.

Across the road – and lastly in our tour – the Wildcat Café looked resplendent in bright white ‘icicles’.

Now, on to your submitted photos. Michelle sent us this great shot of the Grinch up to his old tricks on Johnson Crescent.

Thanks again to all those featured for their time in producing great displays for residents to enjoy. And once more, if we missed your pièce de résistance, we’re sorry! Send us a photo.