The Fort Smith Animal Society was started by Lillian Kristensen, and the Society became a registered not-for-profit Society in the 1980s. She was honoured for her efforts in 2004 as Fort Smith’s Outstanding Elder. Lillian described some of her journey to start the animal society in the Slave River Journal:

“It kind of started out slowly in 1980,” she said, explaining that she used to assist the Yellowknife veterinarian when he visited Fort Smith periodically. “We fixed up a room in the basement of the shop (then North of 60 Books), and that is where the clinic was.” The shop became the Rusty Raven, and is now the office for the Thebacha Business Development Services at 66 Portage Avenue.

Shortly after she began assisting the Yellowknife veterinarian, another vet moved to Fort Smith, and Kristensen assisted him for a few years, too. Her duties included delivering vaccinations and removing stitches after operations. “Then one time, in those first years when we were just sponsoring the clinic, there was one evening at 11 o’clock, a big old tomcat was outside the shop meowing,” she said. “He was skinny, dirty, matted, and he had a loud meow. It was a cold winter night, and he insisted on getting in.” So Kristensen let the cat in and cleaned him up, feeding him and shaving off all his hair. “After two weeks, I put him out, and he stayed in a box outside our door the first night. After that, I never saw him again.”

After that experience, Kristensen built a dog pen in her backyard, which in those days was right behind the old bookstore, “and that’s where the first animals started being taken care of, and that was when I knew for sure that I wanted to call it the Fort Smith Animal Shelter.” That was in 1985. Dogs were kept in the backyard of her house, and cats were kept in the basement of the shop. It was the first Animal Shelter in the NWT.

An external “cat house” was erected soon after, and a News North headline of the day declared: “Fort Smith woman runs Territories’ first licensed Cat House.” Madam Lillian was amused.

By the late 1990s, the shelter had moved to the town’s public works yard on King Street. It remained there until it was relocated in 2001 to its current location at the corner of Raven Street and Highway 5. “Everything I had ever dreamt about the animal shelter for the future is there now,” Kristensen said about the shelter’s current location. “And we have the best shelter in the Northwest Territories, thanks to the town being so generous.”

Lillian left us on October 16, 2005, but her legacy lives on in the actions of everyone who supports the Fort Smith Animal Society, from those who donate to those who volunteer, to those who foster and adopt the animals we care for. Lillian would be proud of all of us as we are of her, for getting the whole thing rolling.