Hotel rooms in Yellowknife selling out with influx of tourists

Tourists and other visitors heading to Yellowknife this month are having trouble finding a place to stay — hotels in the city are busier than ever.

Most hotels are completely sold out, which isn't uncommon in September because of peak aurora borealis, but the Yellowknife Hotel Association says there are more tourists than usual.

"Historically September is a challenge to get rooms," said association treasurer Jenny Bruce, but she added that this year has seen "more of an influx" in tourists.

"I'm going to say the market as a whole seems to be up by about 10 per cent…This year the numbers are definitely up."

Bruce says she's getting calls daily from people desperate to find a room.

Adding to the strain, she says, is 275 personnel who were staying in the city for a military operation. There are also construction workers looking for rooms.

On Friday, Clark Builders, one of the contractors behind the new Stanton Territorial Hospital, said it was no longer building a camp for its crews. Instead, the company said the workers will be housed in rental and hotel rooms.

Bruce says they've seen some subcontractors coming through hotels, but she doesn't think the workers will have a long-term impact on availability.

Larga boarding home prepared for influx

Larga Kitikmeot, a medical boarding home for patients travelling from Nunavut's Kititmeot region, periodically relies on Yellowknife hotels when it fills up.

Manager Casey Adlem says luckily they knew ahead of time that September was going to be a busy month for city hotels.

"So we try to plan ahead with the medical travel staff in Cambridge Bay to ensure that we're going to have enough accommodations for everybody coming down for medical," she said.

"We were lucky we were able to accommodate everybody this month."

Bruce says more rooms will open up next month and the hotels won't get too busy again until December when more tourists arrive to catch the northern lights. She said booking rooms will get challenging again from January to March, when the winter roads open.