Winnie's highway restaurant is closed, but owner still calls quiet town home

Customers at Winnie's Dene Gift shop in Enterprise, N.W.T.,can expect three things hot coffee, radio tuned to CBC and exclusively northern products.

After30 years selling mitts and moccasins at her roadside gift shop, the cherub-cheeked grandmother remains a fierce promoter of Indigenous and Northern artists.

No inukshuk knock-offs here, norforeign made products Winnie Cadieuxonly sells the work of artists from the N.W.T., Nunavut and Northern Alberta.

During a tour of the store, Winnie points to embroidered jackets by fashion designer Darcy Moses,three-dimensional dream catchers and a collection of moose hide purses.

Her top sellers are beaded uppers(the top part of a slipper)and the "minis."

"We have some wonderful sewers who can replicate a mukluk or a slipper or a mitt into a smaller size with amazing detail," she explained.

People like to hang them on their mirrors, zipper pulls, and their Christmas trees, so Winnie said she keeps them stocked.

She is a collector, too. A built-in glass cabinet houses her prized possessions: a hunting bow with porcupine quills, birch bark baskets and a miniature canvas teepee complete with tiny fire pit and coffee pot.

"Look, it even has dry meat," she says with delight.

Off the highway

Enterprise is a quiet town of about 100 people at a highway junction connecting the Northwest Territories and Northern Alberta.

The hamlet has one gas station, one hotel and one convenience store.

There are no stop lights, no hockey rink and no school.Those are all in Hay River, N.W.T.,a 40 kilometre drive away.

Not only is Winnie an advocate for the arts, she's the community's mayor, and a champion of education. She belongs to a grassroots group petitioning the territorial government for a District Education Authority. Once an education authorityis in place, then Enterprise can lobby for a school, something the nearby community of Kakisa haseven though it has half the population.

"We want to have a school that our children can walk to, so they don't have to get up at 6:30 [a.m.]to catch a bus [to Hay River]," Winnie says.

Two of her seven grandchildren live in Enterprise another reason she's pushing for a school.

"Myself and other grandparents would like to be able to go to the school and read a book and help out," she says.

The road to Enterprise

Fate brought Winnie and her husband, Richard, to Enterprise 33 years ago.

They were living in Yellowknife and heading to Hay River for a Mtis gathering.

The hotels were booked so they stayed in Enterprise. A year later, they purchased the Enterprise Esso, which later became Winnie's Kitchen. For years, Winnie's was the place for gas, homemade pie and and a chin wag about local politics.

Sabrina Broadhead and her family routinely drove the 40 kilometres from Hay River.

"When my kids were young we'd go for a plate of Family Fries the biggest plate of french fries and gravy that you could imagine," says Broadhead.

In 2013, Winnie closed the restaurant after a brief attempt at leasing it out.

Broadhead called it a "sad day."

But Broadhead, like many others, continues to enjoy Winnie's butter tarts as a Christmas tradition.

"I always like when [Winnie]knocks on the door and has the butter tarts because people in our family, who come from other parts of the territory have come to expect her butter tarts," Broadhead says, adding delivery is included.

These days fewer people are passing by. Drivers no longer need to gas up with the opening of the Deh Cho bridge.

Today, Winnie'sexists solely as a gift shop with a side business in beads.

She hopes to branch into online sales, but for now she promotes the gift shop on Facebook and through word of mouth.

Despite her quiet existence, Winnie has asmall but loyal stream customers.

Some might call it isolated. She calls it home.

"I love it because we are right on the highway [and] people I know from Yellowknife always stop by," says Winnie.

"It is just a wonderful place to live."

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