Melvyn Robert Smith (1940 – 2024)
	
Mel Smith was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He had many jobs over the years and they included the dairy, butter and egg business, hotel management, food service, chicken farming, and retail grocery and hardware.((“Melvyn Robert Smith.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 30 August 2024.)) Mel came to Faro in 1982 from Lloydminster, Alberta to act as a consultant for Maurice Byblow, who was running a hotel in town. It was supposed to be a six-month contract but after a couple of months he was told that Byblow could not afford him. Three years later, when the mine closed, Smith came back up to help Byblow close the hotel. This time he got paid before he arrived.((Genesee Keevil, “Faro’s little big store.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 19 September 2008.))  

Before Smith got the hotel closed, the mine reopened and people started trickling back to town. Soon they were showing up at the hotel for staples. Smith cleared out a shed, set up a pop cooler and started selling a few groceries. Before he knew it, Smith was running a store. At the peak, Smith and his wife had a grocery store, a hardware, a sporting goods store, and a hair salon. Then the mine closed again. Smith closed the hair salon, and the sporting goods store and moved the hardware into the grocery store. Year after year, he cut expenses to keep the doors open and then, in the summer of 2007, the couple started liquidating their stock.((Genesee Keevil, “Faro’s little big store.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 19 September 2008.))

They bought a small neighbourhood pub in Alberta and were closing the Faro store. Smith’s wife headed to Alberta a few weeks before him and just before he locked the door, she sent him a Dear John letter. With nowhere to go, Smith decided to keep running the Faro store. It was hard going because there was no stock and he had spent his money on the southern enterprise. He had already sold the house, so he moved into the store and started rebuilding the stock. In 2008, Smith had one helper Eileen Owen. In less than ten years, he went from having forty employees to having one as people did most of their main shopping in Whitehorse.((Genesee Keevil, “Faro’s little big store.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 19 September 2008.)) The business became The Discovery Store and Mel would bring in groceries and hard-to-find items that people requested. He would open his store at all hours if people needed something, and he helped many people in many different ways over the years.((“Melvyn Robert Smith.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 30 August 2024.))