Missing a barge, Yellowknife Beer Barge cancelled this year

Organizers of the Beer Barge fundraiser say the lack of a barge, volunteers and time has led to the decision to cancel the event this year, but they say it’s not gone forever.

“It’s disappointing to us that we weren’t able to offer the event because we know that it is a favourite of people in the summer,” said Dryden Choban, the Yellowknife Historical Society’s museum manager.

“Spending all this time trying to figure out a way to do the Beer Barge or its replacement event correctly this year will allow us to have a lot of time to prepare a more ambitious event for next year.”

Choban said the Beer Barge is the historical society’s main fundraiser. While he said last year’s event – also bargeless – was a success, it didn’t raise as much money “as we were really hoping.”

“We are a non-profit that is reliant on donations and government funding,” Choban said. “Losing out on that income is difficult for us to replace, so it is something that we definitely want to rectify in in the future.”

Choban said the society looked at using the Arctic Duchess ship to host this year’s event, but it is stationary and has a structure on it. The society also considered approaching downtown businesses with waterfront property for different venues.

At the end of July, Choban said the Yellowknife Historical Society was in talks to host a “rather ambitious” event, but decided to cancel it because key volunteers and “heavy lifters” would be gone. He said the society did not want to push the event into September due to the weather.

“It’s definitely not canceled forever,” said Choban. “I firmly think that the society wants to keep that going.”

The Beer Barge fundraiser honours historic celebrations of the arrival of the first resupply barge of the summer, which would bring beer and other supplies from the south to Yellowknife in the city’s pre-highway days. The first Beer Barge event was held in 2009 during Yellowknife’s 75th anniversary.

In the past, the Beer Barge featured a barge supplied by Dave Smith of East Arm Freighting. He no longer has that barge.

How the event will look in the future is unclear, but Choban said it will likely continue to be bargeless.

Choban said people interested in supporting the historical society can purchase 50/50 raffle tickets. The winners will be drawn on September 5.