In the mean time, why not put yourself to use and do some volunteering without even leaving your desk.

The Long John Jamboree is looking for help from bloggers and writers from Yellowknife to help populate its website with the goodness that is Yellowknife.

Adrian Bell, one of the main coordinators of the event, writes this in a blog post found here:

I’m looking for volunteers to help develop some content for the Jamboree website.  Specifically, I’d like some content for the “Come to YK” page.

All I’m really looking for are some short descriptions of cool things to do in YK in the spring.

It wont take much, and I, myself, am going to write content for the site. Help a brother out.

And remember, what will make a great community event, is the community coming together to help put on the event.

Until next time,

KyleWith

Somethings may not be right. Sidebar, pages, nav, etc. All Content is still on the site and is available.

Take what you will from the image.

Doug Mahugh, a resident of Seattle was up in Yellowknife to see and photograph the Aurora, or as I call them, the Northern Lights.

As a non-resident, Doug remarks on what it was like seeing the Aurora and also the experience of bundling up and going out in the -30ºC

Alexander Legaree, who is spearheading the I Am Betty campaign, gave me a quick run down about what the I Am BETTY Campaign is all about. I apologize for it being blurry.

Those who head down will get a couple of head shots taken, a quick 6-7 second video of them posing and will get to write out “I Am BETTY” in their own writing, for it to be used within the campaign.

The photo above show Alexander prepping his camera, while Tiffany Ayalik waits to have her photo taken.

If you want to know more check out www.IAmBetty.ca which has links to all the right places.

I’m a little late on the posting of this – I blame it on moving – but nonetheless I’m here to tell you about it.

Some ground work for the campaign is being laid and for that they need our help with getting some material.

Tonight, January 26, 6pm to 8pm and tomorrow, January 27, from 8am to 6pm organizers are asking community members to come down to Dave Brosha’s studio to have their portrait taken for the profile.

One of the organizers, Alexander Legaree, said “I’ll also have everything you need to create your complete profile including help to write your short quote on why you support BETTY House! It should take you less than the length of a coffee break to play your part!”

Community members and their families are encouraged to come down to the studio, which is located on the 2nd floor of 4913 50th St (above Taste of Saigon), anytime during the above hours to show their support.

For more information about the I Am BETTY campaign check out their Facebook Page, Twitter Account or Website.

Hee’s Garden “Authentic Chinese Food” opened on Wednesday, January 18th in Centre Square Mall, Yellowknife. The location formerly housed Robin’s Nest (Asian, Western menu), Broadway on 51st (Casual Dining), Parachute Club (Casual Dining), that I can currently remember. The restaurant is located next to the elevators for the office tower in the lower level of Centre Square Mall and can be accessed from the street entrance on 51st ave across from the liquor store.

We went for lunch on Friday, showing up at 11:45 to make sure had a table. The restaurant quickly filled up, as most businesses do in their first days of business in Yellowknife.

Hee’s features an 8 page menu with Chinese dishes and western dishes

In addition to ordering off the menu, there are combo meals for various numbers of people and the restaurant offers eat in, delivery and pickup.

As is traditional at most Chinese eateries, there was a lunch buffet for a reasonable $13.95 which we both chose.

For those that remember Robin’s Nest, the buffet line no longer exists in its former state. There is a buffet hot table island that features 12 hot dishes and cold salads. On the “mainland” there was a hot plate with 3 types of sauces (gravy, lemon sauce and sweet and sour) , 2 soups (won ton and crab chowder) and desserts. The hot table featured vegetables, fried rice, noodle, ginger chicken, spring rolls, kung pao beef, chicken fingers, deep-fried shrimp, chicken balls, and oddly scallop potatoes and lasagna.

I had one and a half small plates. The food was decent buffet fair, my favorites being the chicken fingers and ginger chicken. There does seem to be a heat lamp on one section not performing as the food was only lukewarm for two items.

The pans at the buffet were shallow. This had pros and cons.Pro -the food was fresh. Con – there were empty trays at times.

My verdict. This place should survive. The food was similar to Red Apple and Mike Marks but different enough for variety. I’ll have to order pick up or delivery to give a true verdict.

I would go back for buffet here again. The windows are nice to sit by.

I’m quite impressed by the amount of users Yellowknife has on Twitter, and many from different walks of life. There are Government employees on the Territorial level and more and more from the municipal level now as well. Many of the journalists, editors and radio hosts are also using Twitter regularly. Plus an abundance of other folks, including a lot of the creatives in Yellowknife.

Most, if not all the New Sources in Yellowknife are also attempting to use Twitter. They are at least piping their news stories into Twitter, props to some of CBC’s reporters that live tweet #NWTpoli. That is always nice to follow.

The one front that is slowly coming along is the businesses. I have seen many of Yellowknife’s business join Twitter, tweet once or twice and then stop. For me that is hard to watch. I want to see them on the platform, because it is such an easy way to communicate with the community.

One of the major issues with Twitter in the north is still whether or not there is value in it for a business. Is it worth the time? Is there an ROI? From my perspective, one of the biggest hang-ups is the fact that Twitter along with other Social Networks are free, but many fail to use them correctly. I spend most of my time figuring out how a person or a business can use these services to their advantage and properly, but again many fail to realize the value in spending the money learning a new medium. Eventually one day, with a bit of encouragement we’ll get there.

Getting away from the deep marketing jibber-jabber, lets talk about tweetups. The social gathering of those on twitter; an excuse to meet in real life (irl). I use to help organize them back in the day, but there has been many since I left YK. Lets change that please. I’m going to get settled, but once I am, I want to host a 2012 #yzftweetup.

There are a lot of people I don’t know on Twitter in Yellowknife now, like I said. I think it would be fun to meet and network. Who is with me?

It will be an evening of celebrating the famous Scot poet and his many pieces of work. Featuring piping and drumming, traditional Burns night programing, dinner and of course HAGGIS!

Highland and Scottish Country Dancing, the Yellowknife Choral Society, followed up by a DJ will also be in attendance during the evening.

There are still more than 60 tickets available, which at $50 each. To get a ticket head down to Office Compliments or call Brad at 920-4733.

More information can be found here: Robert Burns Dinner and Dance

These plates are like no other in the world, because of their unique shape. As we all know that shape is of a Polar Bear and is also shared with license plates of Nunavut.

Northwest Territories Tourism announced today that they will be distributing the trademarked polar bear shaped plates with new designs. They will also be the sole distributor of the plates to retailers, members of the public.

Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and Transportation, David Ramsay has this to say “The polar bear licence plate is recognized around the world as a symbol of the Northwest Territories,” he said. “This partnership with NWT Tourism will ensure that this souvenir plate will promote the Northwest Territories as a tourist destination in the years to come.”

To get one of the new souvenir NWT License Plates you can either order one of the NWT Tourism site, call their office at (867) 873-5007 or by going to one of the local retailers around town.

While I believe the web-store has been around for a while now, I’m glad I came across this today as I’m constantly asked where they can be found.

While the faster speeds will be nice to have, only a handful of handheld devices support the new netwrok. Most of which are Android based smartphone. iPhone users, you’ll have to wait.

Do you have a 4G LTE enabled device, do you notice a different?

Source [The Cellular Guru]