Festivities are in full force this week in Inuvik, N.W.T., where former and current residents are celebrating the town’s 50-year evolution from a cluster of tents to an established northern centre.

Feasts, dances and live music events are part of this week’s 50th anniversary and homecoming celebrations in Inuvik, now a town of 3,500 and the territory’s third-largest community next to Yellowknife and Hay River.

When it was founded in 1958, it was a dusty tent city on the banks of the East Branch Channel. Some of the town’s first residents, including Minnie Kalinek, have returned to Inuvik this week for the anniversary.

“It really changed here…. They have big buildings which we’ve never seen before,” said Kalinek, whose family moved to Inuvik from the land near Tuktoyaktuk when she was 10 years old.

“We lived at [the] tent town all year round. It was a really hard life because then we had 50 below,” she recalled.

“Oh, that was cold … we had to have our wood stove on all the time.”

Kalinek and her husband lived in Inuvik until 1983, when the moved to British Columbia. But upon hearing about the town’s 50th anniversary, she said they loaded up their recreational vehicle and drove back up the Dempster Highway to their hometown.

Inuvik’s homecoming week was the idea of Mayor Derek Lindsay and town council. They’ve invited many former residents back home to join the festivities, with the hopes that the event will also attract more tourists to town.

“It’s nice to see that Inuvik has opened its doors to everyone. We hope to make Inuvik a hotspot for visitors,” Lindsay said Monday.

“People will see that Inuvik’s not the end of the road and that’s it … but there are things to do here when you get here.”

Lindsay, a 27-year resident of the community, has been welcoming former residents back to Inuvik in recent days.

“I’m seeing people I’ve known for years and years and years who’ve come and gone and now they’re coming back,” he said.

“It’s great to see them again. It’s just renewing old friendships.”

Inuvik’s anniversary celebrations culminate on Friday with a parade, feast and cake-cutting ceremony.