The Yellowknife Historical Museum opened its doors on Tuesday, describing itself as a “vibrant, community-based museum” assembled over more than two decades.
Perched outside the Giant Mine remediation site – and housed inside the mine’s former recreation centre – much of the museum, but not all, is given over to the city’s mining heritage.
A timeline next to the museum’s entrance spans four billion years, stretching from the age of the oldest rock in the region to the year 2023, when Yellowknife endured a three-week evacuation because of wildfires. (The museum had the timeline, which was already complete by last August, amended and reprinted to account for that month’s fires.)
Dignitaries held a ribbon-cutting on Tuesday ahead of a public opening from 3-6pm. Initially, the museum plans to open on afternoons – check its Facebook page for opening hours.
The federal, territorial and municipal governments have each contributed to the project. The Yellowknives Dene Drummers led a feeding-the-fire ceremony on Tuesday. While no leaders from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation or North Slave Métis Alliance spoke at the opening, Yellowknife Historical Society president Helmut Epp said the project had gone ahead with their support and participation.
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At the feeding-the-fire ceremony, drummers pointed out that members of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation had been hurt by the toxic arsenic dust that spewed from Giant Mine during mining in the days before safety measures were introduced.
Giant and its legacy form some of the displays inside the museum, as does Yellowknife’s broader mining heritage.
However, Ryan Silke, the historian who curated many of the museum’s exhibits, said: “We wanted to showcase different aspects of our story. We’re located at Giant Mine, but we’re not a mining museum.”
Silke said he had spent more than two decades working on the project in various guises.
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“Our exhibits really start with the beginnings, with the geology of this area, because that is part of our history as well, going back four billion years,” he said of the introductory timeline on the wall as you enter.
“We talk about the Indigenous history here as well. We had some great partnerships with the Yellowknives Dene and the North Slave Métis Alliance, to get their perspectives on local history and the impacts of mining. We’re really proud of that exhibit.”
The timeline highlights major moments in Yellowknife history alongside slightly less familiar history, like the introduction of a dairy farm to the city. Yellowknife’s mink farming heritage gets a whole display, including a cage from the farm.
Elsewhere, the museum documents the mix of nationalities and cultures that arrived in Yellowknife as gold mining began, from the first Chinese restaurant to the founding of the notorious Gold Range café.
On the floor, a glass panel contains a shuffleboard court that was part of the Giant Mine recreation centre’s original flooring. The curling scoreboard from Con Mine hangs above the main doorway.
Walt Humphries, the first president of the Yellowknife Historical Society, said the museum was “a gift to the city we all love, and we hope it will evolve into an important cultural hub.”
“Unless you have a central place for history, it’s just scattered all around and people don’t get an overview of what the city is like,” he said.
“This has taken countless volunteer hours and financial support from many sources.”
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Humphries said an outdoor display of vintage equipment and other items will move closer to the new museum building in the future, while the society has plans to expand its parking lot once the Giant Mine remediation is sufficiently advanced to allow that.
“We’re not done yet. We’ve still got things to do,” he said.
Michael McLeod, the NWT’s MP, remembered being “a pin setter at Con Mine while I was at Akaitcho Hall, that’s how I made my spending money,” as he helped open the museum.
“The community museum and interpretive centre will certainly celebrate this rich mining history by telling the story of Yellowknife’s development, the legacy of Giant Mine, as well as the impact of the mine and the community on the local Indigenous people,” McLeod said.
“Places like this allow us to teach our youth and our kids about what our history of mining looks like,” said NWT industry minister Caitlin Cleveland.
“It allows us to capture some of those cultural traditions, helps us develop strong and healthy youth, and also learn from that past and continue telling those stories of how mining has an impact not only on our economy, but also on our communities as well, and what that looks like tomorrow.”
“It’s really bringing this old rec hall back to life,” said Mayor Rebecca Alty, standing in what is now the dining room of a café named the Miner’s Mess that will operate alongside the museum.
“I think it’s going to be a big thing. People come here for the northern lights but they also come here for that history,” Alty said.
“I see this as the first step. At Giant Mine there’s a lot to clean up but this is bringing that life back to the site, one step at a time.”
