NWT’s Halloween rules uncertain, residents prep anyway

It’s unclear what Halloween will look like this year, with the NWT still under Covid-19 public health restrictions. One Yellowknife family says no matter what, they’ll be pulling out all the stops.

The Office of the Chief Public Health Officer says NWT residents can expect some kind of guidance about Halloween public health restrictions by early October.

Jackie Hardy, who lives in a house known by locals as the “Halloween house” on Finlayson Drive, said she and her partner Ed spend a year planning for the holiday.

For the past 15 years, they’ve been going all-out to celebrate Halloween.

“It’s getting bigger and better every year,” she said. “It’s quite time-consuming and a little bit expensive but we just love when the kids come to our door, especially the ones that have been coming for the last 15 years.”

In 2019, the Hardy family counted 550 kids showing up on their doorstep on October 31.

Like everyone else, Jackie and Ed don’t yet know what they’ll be allowed to do to make Halloween fun for kids this year. If health officials allow, she said, they’ll definitely have treats available.

“We’re looking at different options,” she said. “We considered one of those potato guns, but we thought someone might get hurt if we started shooting bags of candy across our driveway.”

The Hardy family came across a more realistic idea on Facebook, where someone had attached a long, plastic pipe to the hand-railing on their front steps. The device allows them to drop candy down the shoot into children’s trick-or-treating bags.

Jackie and Ed plan to wear pandemic-approved, Halloween-themed masks and gloves if advised to do so.

“Time will tell, but we’ll do [Halloween] in whatever safe manner we can,” she said.

“I’m sure it’ll be a fun night, whatever way we wind up doing it.”