Danielle Sachs started dyeing her own yarn with Kool-Aid powders while living in the Hay River highrise.
Today, crafters can buy hand-coloured yarn bearing her Knit Free or Dye label, at Fisherman's Wharf.
Chris Hawley was pushing through illness when he began transforming a two-car garage on a quiet, residential street into a boutique workout space. Hawley hopes to soon hold personal personal training sessions at the studio he's named Invoke Fitness.
Melissa Beck started She Takes the Cake out of the kitchen in her home. Her custom cakes were so popular she had to move into her own shop.
Now Beck is looking to sell her much-loved cafe to a new owner who will carry on its legacy.
A more comprehensive telling of each of these three stories can be found in this week's Hub.
Hay River is not lacking in entrepreneurial spirit.
Indeed, a large number of the businesses in Hay River are home-grown: launched by intrepid residents who recognize the value in investing in their own community.
"This is how business starts in the community, it starts through home-grown businesses," Coun. Steve Anderson said in an interview on July 3.
Anderson is part-owner of Super A, one of the most prominent businesses in town.
Anderson said he makes a point of buying local products to sell in his store, "because those people are shopping in our store and they're shopping in other businesses."
Last month, Anderson voted against a revised procurement bylaw because it stripped home-based businesses of the preferential treatment afforded to all other local businesses.
Debate over the bylaw focused on a single provision: the 10 per cent purchase preference applied to local businesses.
Currently, the purchase preference piece enables Hay River businesses to place bids up to 10 per cent higher than their outside competitors and still win a contract from the town.
Under the proposed procurement bylaw, the purchase preference would not have applied to businesses operating out of the owner's home.
The reasoning behind this stipulation, said the councillors who were involved in drafting the new bylaw, was that storefront businesses pay additional property taxes and have higher overhead costs in general.
Those opposed to the change said home business owners do pay taxes and other fees to the town. They said barring them from the purchase preference benefit would mean their bids are weighed equally to those from a Yellowknife or Edmonton company.
Ultimately, council quashed the bylaw and sent it back to the policy committee for further discussion.
The Hub believes council was right to decide the bylaw required deeper consideration.
Anderson made an apt point when he said on July 3 that the bylaw sent "the wrong message to home-grown businesses that are starting out and growing."
So it was heartening to hear Peter Magill, Hay River's tourism and economic development co-ordinator, say the Visitors Information Centre had increased the number of artisans it represents, from nine to 24.
Especially so considering the centre saw a remarkable number of tourists walk through its doors this past June SA国际影视传媒� visits tripled compared with numbers from June 2017.
Local crafts are a "big draw" for tourists, said Magill.
Gestures big and small toward Hay River's small-business community are welcome and important.
The Hub hopes the town government continues to support, symbolically and materially, the small businesses that make Hay River a sustainable, unique and attractive community.
