Old Crow, Yukon, making do with temporary food store

The outgoing chief of the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation says Old Crow's new Co-op grocery store is set to open in March.

In the meantime, the store hasbeen operating on a temporary basis since before Christmas, in the former Northern Store. The Northern Storeclosed in mid-November.

The temporary store is also home to the local post office and bank.

Chief Joe Linklater says it took some doing to get the interim operation going.

"Getting people to run the store, run the bank and the post office and what-not because we had to take over those contracts," Linklater says.

"Then there is just the logistics of, you know, we've never run a store before so learning allthat its been a real interesting process for us to go through," he says.

Linklater says during the transition the Dawson City General Store was a huge help, flying people in to help train local staff. He adds, more people have been trained to run the bank and post office.