Ragged Ass Road is a short

unpaved A road surface (British English) or pavement (North American English) is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, macadam, ho ...

residential street in the Old Town section of

Yellowknife Yellowknife is the capital, largest community, and the only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of t ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Its name started as a joke in 1970 by resident Lou Rocher, who owned much of the property along it at the time, and his friends. At the time the street had been known as "Privy Road" due to the large number of

outhouse An outhouse — known variously across the English-speaking world otherwise as bog, dunny, long-drop, or privy — is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket ...

s along it. When a difficult

prospecting Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis (followed by Mining engineering#Pre-mining, exploration) of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking. ...

season yielded little income, convincing residents that they were "ragged ass broke", they decided that that should be the name of the street. While widely used, the name was somewhat controversial. It was not officially recognized by the city with signposts until the mid-2010s, after Rocher's death. It has been described as one of the most famous streets in Canada. Singer

Tom Cochrane Thomas William Cochrane ( ; born May 14, 1953) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician best known as the frontman for the rock band Red Rider and for his work as a solo singer-songwriter. Cochrane has won eight Juno Awards. He is a member ...

named his 1995 album after it, including a song about the street.

Street

Ragged Ass Road is in a residential area midway between the intersection of Franklin (50th) Avenue, Yellowknife's main street, and School Draw Avenue, its lake shore road, and Yellowknife Bay on the north arm of

Great Slave Lake Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada (after Great Bear Lake), List of lakes by depth, the deepest lake in North America at , and the List of lakes by area, tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It ...

. The terrain is flat, at approximately in elevation, reflecting the proximity of the lake. The neighborhood is at the south end of the city's Old Town, on a peninsula projecting into the lake's Yellowknife Bay. The southern terminus is at Brock Drive, three blocks east of School Draw. From there it follows a north-northeast heading, bending more to the northeast midway along its length, then back to its original heading as it reaches its north terminus at Hamilton Drive. Along with its neighboring streets it is

for its entire length. With the exception of one large

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

outcrop in the middle of the west side of the street, all the

lots Lot, LOT, The Lot or similar may refer to: Common meanings Areas *Land lot, an area of land *Parking lot, for automobiles *Backlot, in movie production Sets of items *A Quantity, great many of something, as in, "There are a lot of beetles," or "T ...

along the street are developed with

wood frame Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure, particularly a building, support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is ...

residences of modern construction and associated outbuildings. Some small

deciduous tree In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, after flo ...

s grow among them.Per the

Google Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expa ...

option at the ACME Mapper link given above. (In her novel '' Bones Are Forever'', American writer

Kathy Reichs Dr. Kathleen Joan Reichs (PhD) (née Toelle, born July 7, 1948) is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist and academic. She is a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is well known ...

described the prevailing

architectural style An architectural style is a classification of buildings (and nonbuilding structures) based on a set of characteristics and features, including overall appearance, arrangement of the components, method of construction, building materials used, for ...

of Ragged Ass as "northern hodgepodge".) Addresses are in the range of 3901–3921, following Yellowknife's grid-based numbering system. Its

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or numerical digit, digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, inclu ...

is X1A 2T4.

History

The construction date of Ragged Ass Road is unknown. Yellowknife was significantly settled only after a 1935

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...

. After a few years, development was interrupted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, only to resume afterwards. At that time most development was on the peninsula, in the area known today as Old Town. The road may have started as a narrow alley where residents cut wood to building the

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

s that carried freight to and from the growing settlement across

. By 1957, when

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

native Lou Rocher settled in the area, it existed and was known unofficially as Privy Road due to the many

s along it. Rocher made his living through several vocations, selling

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not heavily processed, and is in some sort of firelog, recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellet fuel, pellets. ...

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for Commerce, commercial Profit (economics), profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice ...

, but primarily

. He eventually came to live on Privy Road, where he owned several

on the street. On them he built homes and cabins, often letting people in need live there. One night near the end of 1970, in which he and fellow prospectors had worked hard but found far less, he was drinking with some of them in the family

Quonset hut A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel with a semi-circular cross-section. The design was developed in the United States based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I. Hund ...

. Reflecting on their circumstances, Rocher joked that the street should be named "Ragged Ass Road" since they were all "ragged ass broke". " y fatherfelt he should be able to name it because he owned six of the nine lots on the road and he thought he could name it appropriately", his son recalled later. The men put up a sign that night. The term's use as a place name might not have been original. There was reportedly a Ragged Ass Mine on the lake in earlier years. The name caught on, if not formally. Officially the city still considered the street to have no name, but Rocher made his own signs, replacing them after visiting tourists stole them. Eventually they were

welded Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, primarily by using high temperature to melt the parts together and allow them to cool, causing fusion. Common alternative methods include solvent w ...

to their posts, and gift shops in the city started selling replicas. During the 1980s, Rocher clashed with Yellowknife's municipal government over a survey of the area. At one point he even blocked the street off to keep city employees away. In 1995 former

Red Rider Red Rider, later known as Tom Cochrane & Red Rider, is a Canadian rock band popular in the 1980s. While they achieved significant success in Canada, the band never had a song in the top 40 in the United States, although " Lunatic Fringe" from t ...

lead singer

named his third album '' Ragged Ass Road'' after the street. The title track of the album described a place "Where the shore fires burn out on a new frontier" and had the chorus "Oh did you find the

midnight sun Midnight sun, also known as polar day, is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When midnight sun is see ...

" Down on Ragged Ass Road". It added to the road's allure as a

tourist attraction A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural beaut ...

, but the city still demurred from making the name official. The city was not unique in its reluctance to embrace the name despite its popularity. In 2004, a small town in the U.S. state of

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

mailed a Ragged Ass Road sign back to Yellowknife's city government after having confiscated it from a homeowner as inappropriate for public display. Eight years later a

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

man flying out of

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

WestJet WestJet Airlines, is a Canadian airline headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Founded in 1994, it is the second-largest airline in Canada and the eighth-largest airline in North America by frequency. It began operations in 1996 with 220 employee ...

with a Ragged Ass Road T-shirt was told by a

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

to either cover it up or turn it inside out for the duration of the flight since the airline was "family-friendly". He chose the former option, but when the incident made national news, WestJet apologized. When it did so, it posted to its

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

account a photo of a Ragged Ass Road sign that had been on the office wall of its

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

, Gregg Saretsky, for two years. Yellowknife city officials made it a point to meet with WestJet officials to come to a common understanding: the T-shirts are a tourist draw. The year before,

crime novel Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a profession ...

ist and

forensic anthropologist Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification o ...

, a producer of the American television series ''

Bones A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, an ...

'', had attended the NorthWords

literary festival A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers' festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city. A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings ...

in Yellowknife. She liked the city so much she set part of her next novel, '' Bones Are Forever'', there. In one scene her main character,

Temperance Brennan Temperance Daessee Brennan is a fictional character created by author Kathy Reichs, and is the hero of her crime novel series (which are usually referred to as the Temperance Brennan novels). She was introduced in Reichs' first novel, '' Déjà D ...

, a forensic anthropologist like her creator, trails a suspect from downtown Yellowknife to Ragged Ass Road on a cold morning, giving her a chance to describe it: According to Murtaza Haider, professor and director of

Toronto Metropolitan University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a Public university, public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, Toronto, Gar ...

's Institute of Housing and Mobility, it is claimed that this street is an example of a "poorly named street ...

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

create negative shift in market value." "Ragged Ass" street sign replicas are sold in the area. Nevertheless, the signs have been stolen so frequently that the city has had them welded to their posts. Lou Rocher died in May 2013 and was remembered around Yellowknife most prominently for giving Ragged Ass Road its name. Despite that, his family noted, at that time the city still had not installed official street signs with the name. As of 2015, there are city signs at both ends of the road.

Notes

References

External links

* {{NT Roads Transport in Yellowknife Roads in the Northwest Territories Streets in Canada

Street

History

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links