by Candace A. McQuatt

40 years ago

Giant Mine had a $125,000 gold brick go missing in Canada Post's mail system.

The post office's security and investigations department in Edmonton said a brick weighing 688 ounces or 43 pounds was loaded onto a Pacific Western direct flight from Yellowknife to Edmonton on March 8. They were satisfied the brick came off the plane at Edmonton International Airport, but it hadn't been seen since.

The gold was bound for the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa. An investigation was started when the brick didn't show up.

Post office representative Wilf Reinbold said an investigation found security procedures to be very lax.

鈥淪ecurity was terrible 鈥� people were signing for things they did not receive, and probably complied with anything,鈥� he said.

So lax were the security procedures, they were reminiscent of the days when gold bricks from the Con Mine were shipped to the Yellowknife Post Office in the trunks of local cabs, he said.

The gold brick was supposed to have been met at the airport by an armored car and immediately transferred before any other baggage was removed from the plane. Something happened but nobody knew what. Apparently the transfer was not made.

Reinbold said if the brick was picked up by mistake or misplaced, it should have been found by then. The RCMP were treating it as a theft.

Giant Mine management were reluctant at the time to discuss the disappearance of the gold brick due to insurance matters. The gold was insured against loss or theft by a private company. The post office insured their registered post, but only to a value of $100.

30 years ago

City council was in favour of giving Yellowknifers a half-day holiday at the start of Caribou Carnival. But with only six of nine members present at the council meeting a third reading couldn't be held. Council had to schedule a special meeting to approve the order before March 25 so citizens could have their half-day holiday.

20 years ago

A partial evacuation of the RCMP detachment was blamed on a chemical additive in the building's boiler. Staff were given the option of leaving after fumes made their way into the ventilation system. The only area that wasn't affected was the cell block.

10 years ago

While the second season of the hit show Ice Road Truckers was being filmed north of Inuvik, Alex Debogorski - the show's star - was enjoying a different kind of fame. The Yellowknifer's photo showed up in People Magazine in a blurb called 鈥淭V's hottest manly men.鈥�

His photo appeared alongside photos of men from other hit shows including Deadliest Catch and Ax Men.