Signed, a Yellowknife-based graphic design and print operation, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a Great Ptarmi Hunt, which, starting on Sunday, will involve the hiding 100 of the plush birds throughout the city.
“It’s awesome,” Janet Pacey, owner of Signed, said in regards to her decade in business. “It’s surprising that it’s happened so quickly.”
Pacey and her team will be hiding the plush toys in bushes, trees and snowbanks on one side of the Frame Lake Trail, from the Co-Op, past the hospital and City Hall to the Legislative Assembly.
“I thought it might be a bit easier for families if they could just use the paved portion of the trail,” Pacey said.
Originally, she came up with the concept in 2020, just as the pandemic had started.
“I know how much people were struggling, especially little kids being stuck at home,” she said. “So I thought, ‘Oh, this is a fun community thing I can do,’ so I got a bunch of my friends, and they each took 20 Ptarmis and I gave them an area of town on a map and said; ‘Here, go hide them.’”
“So we all took an area of town, put these Ptarmis out, and the next day it was pandemonium,” she recalled.
Those who find a Ptarmi are asked to only take one per household.
Each plush toy will be numbered, and successful Ptarmi hunters are invited to stop by Signed, above True Value Hardware, with their number to pick up a free pair of Ptarmi-sized glasses.
The hunt officially begins at 9 a.m.