Arctic Moment: Which Way is Cat Skinner’s Road?

During the winter, cars, trucks and snowmobiles travel on Great Slave Lake’s Yellowknife Bay. But there are no designated roads, and, for a long time, there was no signage. That made it hard to find Sadee Mitchell’s home on Jolliffe Island. She had a solution, though. In 2019, the nine-year-old made 10 blue, fish-shaped road signs and put them up on the most travelled routes to help people navigate the lake. As part of a heritage fair project, she researched local history and came up with names such as Mushers Drive, Willy-Mac Cul de Sac and Cat Skinner’s Road. This photo is from 2020, but Mitchell, now a teenager, still puts the signs up each winter.