A flock of more than one hundred Yellowknifers pedal along two lanes of a busy street on an assortment of mountain bikes, cargo bikes, tricycles, e-bikes, children’s bikes, expensive road bikes and old dump bikes. It’s late April, but the sun has dried the streets and provided a cordial welcome for the cyclists on a group ride to city hall. Once there, Becca Denley, in a puffy jacket and blue helmet, pulls out a loudspeaker.
“Do we need more secure downtown bike storage? Do we need more multi-use paths?” The crowd cheers, hollers and rings bike bells.
A professional architect, mother and advocate for active mobility, Denley is a familiar face at city hall. Tonight, she’ll deliver a presentation to council on a handful of projects, including SHIFT, a free bike-share program. She’s a no-nonsense activist for people of all ages and abilities who can’t, shouldn’t or don’t drive. In Yellowknife, 29 per cent of the population didn’t have a driver’s license in 2022. But as Denley points out, “These people still need to move around their communities and be able to do it safely.”
Yellowknife may not seem a likely place for a bike activist, let alone a campaign to install cycling infrastructure. The city has only five months of above-zero average temperatures and the true northern winter of 20-to-40 below zero is sandwiched between mushy, dirty-snow season and freeze-thaw season and increasingly freckled with freezing rain events thanks to climate change. “There are people who are stuck, who think the car is the only way to get around, and I used to be one of those people,” says Denley. “I used to think winter biking was just for the brave.”
But that changed when she and her family lived in a bike-friendly northern city where they cycled year-round. “We lived it, and it was simple,” she says. “But most of all, the exercise of commuting everywhere by bicycle saved me.” The time pressures of a full-time career and being a mother had pushed her into a sedentary lifestyle. She returned to Yellowknife committed to making active transportation easier and safer.
Denley’s approach is maturing a debate that previously focused on why people should ditch their cars. In contrast, she concentrates on inclusivity, building safer infrastructure and earning the support of parents, children, the elderly and even vehicle drivers. “Cycling isn’t for everyone, but neither is driving,” she insists. “There shouldn’t be a culture clash.” While Denley and her fellow cycling proponents face significant challenges before reaching their goals, Yellowknife has largely avoided the bitterness over bikes that has beset other cities.
Until it was stolen, Denley briefly had a bike while attending Inuksuk High School in Iqaluit. In Toronto for fine arts and cultural studies and a master’s degree in architecture, she didn’t cycle. “I walked, walked, walked,” she says, “and used public transit.” In 2007, she took a job with Taylor Architecture Group in Yellowknife and soon met Adam Denley, a pilot for Arctic Sunwest Charters. Two daughters and more than a decade later, the Denleys were burnt out and needed a change. In 2020, Adam found a contract in Aarhus, Denmark. Instead of buying a car there, they completed most trips by bicycle. Their young daughters cycled by themselves along dedicated and well-maintained bicycle pathways, which meant less worry and an easier schedule. “Cycling was freedom,” Denley says. “It was easy, welcoming and normal.”
In 2023, they moved back to Yellowknife determined to continue the lifestyle they’d enjoyed in Aarhus. But they were welcomed by unplowed trails, snowbanks pushed onto sidewalks and streets with deep vehicle ruts. These conditions convinced Denley to work for better and safer cycling infrastructure. At age 46, she was ready to be a cycling activist. For Folk on the Rocks in July 2024, she convinced the Government of the Northwest Territories to use pylons to create a bike lane so people—especially children—could safely pedal to the music festival.
That summer, Denley also created a bike-share program after finding a partner in the Northwest Territories Recreation and Parks Association and funding from the NWT Health and Social Services Department. Rather than a traditional bike-share system, SHIFT: Decreasing Barriers to Active Mobility offers free two-week bike loans. Denley hopes that’s enough time for people to form habits they won’t want to change. Every second Sunday at Somba K’e Park, a volunteer swaps bikes and completes necessary repairs. Last summer, the program consistently lent out eight bikes and created a waitlist for 2025.
The program wasn’t just popular. One woman returned her bike after five days; she loved it so much she bought her own. I first witnessed SHIFT one humid autumn day with the wind buffeting the leafless trees. As I watched my son cycle in the back alley behind my home, I noticed a man on a shiny black e-bike stopped nearby. I realized he was searching for cans and bottles in a neighbour’s garbage. It would be impressive, I thought, if he bought the e-bike with bottle money. When I talked to him, I learned his name is Yacob and he’d borrowed a SHIFT bike. “It’s life changing,” he told me. Suddenly, I grasped the full meaning of the program. Anyone, with any means, can try out an e-bike, cargo bike, e-tricycle or city bike. Yacob now has a freedom he doesn’t normally experience.
Outside Yellowknife’s Bella Dance Academy, Evelyn Denley looks up at the dark sky and tries catching snowflakes on her tongue. In a moment, the 11-year-old and her sister, Alice, both donning toques and bike helmets, are inside the large front hold of their mother’s electric cargo tricycle for the ten-minute ride home. It’s mid-October and zero degrees with a strong north wind, though the ground is still ice-free. As I pedal beside them, Evelyn says it’s like riding in a car with a sunroof except that she’s lower and can easily talk to people and see more. But Denley puts away the cargo tricycle for much of the winter. Numerous snowbanks and unplowed trails make it nearly impossible to use, but she continues to commute to work on her city bike.
While she encourages cycling, she worries that someone will be injured due to unsafe or inadequate infrastructure. In June 2024, two children—one riding a bike and another pushing his bike over a crosswalk—were hit by drivers in downtown Yellowknife. The same month, a man was killed while cycling on the Alaska Highway in Whitehorse. So, safety isn’t a concern just for kids or just in Yellowknife.
Arlin McFarlane has cycled her entire life, but during the pandemic she struggled on a fat bike in Whitehorse and bought an e-bike. “I equipped it with studded tires for the winter and enjoyed riding the Waterfront Trail, but then had to navigate brown sugar snow on a narrow shoulder beside vehicles to reach my part-time job,” she says. (In warm temperatures, the snow mixes with road dirt and car grime, eventually becoming like loose brown sugar or sand.) Her determination held for a while, reinforced by a philosophy of cycling as part of her health-care plan. But she eventually stopped biking over brown sugar snow on narrow shoulders in the dark beside traffic. Cold is not a problem, the 72-year-old says, just the lack of a separated path.
The master plan for the new Whitehorse community of Whistle Bend was based on “smart growth, new urbanism and sustainable design principles.” But while the neighbourhood includes plenty of recreational multi-use trails, no bike paths lead in or out. Although the city has improved its trail network and snow clearing, cyclist Richard Legner says both still “leave much to be desired.”
Smaller and colder, Iqaluit doesn’t have much bike-specific infrastructure and certainly has fewer winter cyclists than Whitehorse or Yellowknife. But Victoria Perron is still happy to ride all year. “Drivers are polite and patient, there’s not a lot of traffic, snow isn’t usually a barrier and there’s a culture of driving slowly and stopping to let pedestrians, dogs and children cross wherever they see fit. But the wind can be intense, the numerous hills are intimidating and ice is a challenge.” Although the persistent Arctic wind sometimes creates large drifts, mostly it blows the snow into the hollows and keeps high ground like roads relatively bare of snow. Still, having flown her bike 2,000 kilometres to Ottawa several times for maintenance, she admits, “A bike shop would be nice.”
In Hay River, two town recreation staff, Jordan Froese and Courtney Fraser, began a bike bus last summer. Four days a week they corralled dozens of young students on bikes into a block-long parade to and from school. Froese’s children had refused to ride to school unless friends joined them; with the bike bus, as many as 40 kids rode with them, singing along to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and other songs playing on a speaker. Froese and Fraser accepted children aged eight and over without supervision, and several parents came with younger children. The bike bus won Hay River the 2024 ParticipACTION Community Challenge and a $100,000 prize.
But when summer ended, so did Hay River’s bike bus and Denley’s SHIFT program. In Yellowknife, businesses remove some bike racks while others become buried in snow and stretches of sidewalks and trails remain uncleared. Riding on the street becomes precarious, even with studded tires. But other cities have shown that separated and well-maintained cycling paths continue to be used except in the harshest conditions. Hundreds of kilometres of separated trails in Oulu, Finland, near the Arctic Circle, have resulted in 12 per cent of all winter trips being completed by bicycle. At schools, half of children arrive on bikes even at -20°C.
Denley insists that creating multi-use paths in Yellowknife is good for kids and everyone else. “It’s safer for cyclists and pedestrians and has proven to reduce car collisions by reducing conflict on roadways,” she says. Given that roughly a third of the population can’t drive, we’re discriminating by focusing our city design on motor vehicles. “Streets should be designed for people and safety,” she says, adding that when children ask to go biking or walk to visit friends, their parents tell them it’s not safe. “Where are kids going to learn to bike? In a parking lot?”
The sky is grey and the temperature -18°C as I cycle my fat bike to city hall to meet Yellowknife mayor Rebecca Alty. She’s noticed more people arrive at city hall to ask for better cycling infrastructure and winter-trail maintenance. The city has made some improvements to multi-use trails and snow clearing, and pressure from citizens has pushed Yellowknife to begin a transportation master plan that covers active transportation, public transit and motorized traffic. Alty, who says accessibility and inclusion are motivating the city to improve cycling infrastructure, praises Denley: “Becca is a strong advocate, keeping the issue front and centre and mobilizing people.”
And the time is right. The surge in cycling popularity has been aided by concern for the climate, a growing awareness that we need more physical exercise and a flood of new bicycle designs such as fat bikes, cargo bikes and e-bikes. According to daughter Evelyn, Denley knows everyone, which also helps. She often stops to chat while cycling and says, “The favourite part of my commute is meeting people.” Husband Adam, now a bush pilot for Air Tindi, calls himself “Becca’s co-pilot.” He’s an activist who takes a shovel to city hall to clear the snow away from the bike rack so his wife and others can lock their bikes when they arrive to present to council. The couple is also part of Communities in Motion, which promotes active transportation in the NWT.
Building on last year’s success, Denley hopes to establish a Cycling Without Age program so seniors can enjoy active transportation. She wants to install more secure bike storage downtown to reduce theft. And she’s searching for more funding to cover SHIFT expenses, including insurance, the website and bike repairs. “It’s my passion. I also feel it’s an obligation,” she says. “There are people who have given up, but there are so many people who support this. I feel like I’m spinning a web, glueing connections together. And SHIFT people are becoming part of the web.”
But the push for more infrastructure faces a common obstacle. “The cost is pretty prohibitive,” Denley admits. Yellowknife councillor Steve Payne says, “Projects are coming in higher than budgeted and we’re in a financial crunch now. Money is the big barrier.” Alty adds another problem: “The biggest barriers are funding and that roads are updated based on water and sewer projects.”
Still, Yellowknife has also been slow to approve off-road infrastructure. After studies recommended extending the Frame Lake Trail, the 2019 budget originally included funding to increase connectivity by adding 500 metres. But council axed the expenditure to reduce that year’s property-tax increase. Payne hopes the Frame Lake Trail will be extended in the next few years, though he doesn’t like the proposal of a bike path on Range Lake Road. “What will you remove to have a bike lane?”
Even when money is approved, it isn’t always spent wisely. When Yellowknife built a raised bike path along 52nd Avenue in 2014, local cyclists weren’t happy. “The lane is dangerous because it forces cyclists to merge in and out of traffic before and after intersections,” says Benjamin Israel. “Whoever designed this bike lane must have never ridden a bike in an urban environment.” Alex Giroux agrees. “The path combines the worst of both worlds,” she says. “It has you weaving in and out of traffic, parked cars and pedestrians.” Craig Scott adds, “They upgraded the sidewalk trail, adjacent to the paving contract that year, but they don’t consistently link the bike infrastructure and choose a different design every few years.”
Despite these complaints, Yellowknife’s cycling community is growing, and more people are riding in the winter. Around 30 people on a variety of bikes—adorned with flashing lights, costumes and inflatable Grinches and a few with children in their cargo holds—joined an active transportation float in the Santa Claus Parade at the end of November. “When advocating for safer streets takes its toll,” Denley says, “it sure is nice to have fun with supportive folks.”
She understands that change will take time, but she already convinced many people of the need for cycling infrastructure. That includes Payne, who says, “We need something safe going forward for bikers, especially in winter.” At a December council meeting, the city approved a trial of painted bike lanes on a few streets this summer and committed to installing a separated lane when it resurfaces Franklin Hill in 2026. Denley is optimistic more improvements will come. “People are realizing that we can create healthier and more accessible streets that welcome everyone,” she says before repeating one of her favourite quotes: “Courage should come from our councillors, not our children.”
