NOTL Chamber of Commerce president Eduardo Lafforgue has a cool new job. Very cool, actually.

He has resigned from the chamber and will be taking on a role as tourism director for the Yukon Territory.

He said the job was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up.

“It's a fantastic opportunity. They don't come around very often, but at my age they will not come around again, for sure,” he said in an interview.

He said he’s looking forward to moving up the ladder and promoting an entire territory, and to be close to nature and connected with Canada’s First Nations.

For Lafforgue, the cold won’t be entirely new. He and his wife raised their children for years in Quebec, where he said temperatures were often -25C in the cold seasons.

“We're used to -25C, and very often, and having a pile of snow in the morning when I was driving to my office in Montreal.”

“And I'm very used to that. So no problem,” he said.

His children made sure to get him a parting gift to help keep him warm.

“The goodbye gift from our children is big, big, big coats, and snow rails, boots. So we're prepared,” he laughs.

Lafforgue has lived around the world. Nationally Spanish Canadian, he was born in Argentina, lived in England and Mexico, and eventually found his way to Canada.

Before his last day with the NOTL chamber on Feb, 28, he said he’s focused on “leaving everything as much in order for the board and my successor as I can.”

Some projects he is winding down are the chamber’s “shop local” campaign, which he said will continue with other chambers, as well as securing more rapid tests for local businesses.

Getting the rapid tests early was something he was proud of doing in 2021, he said.

“We were one of the first 28 chambers to start this program,” he said. “At the beginning, not everybody was willing to do it or pushing for that. We're 98 chambers participating. And we're very proud of what we achieved with that and the fact that it has been so successful. It's very good and it has been, we have saved lives actually. So it's fantastic.”

When he gets to the Yukon he said it will be a “very tough first 90 days” getting to know the programs, staff and co-ordinating with Destination Canada.

He said being selected for the position makes him feel “like 30 years younger,.”

“You know these kinds of opportunities come to people that are (in their 30s), not my age,” he said.

He said he will miss a lot about NOTL.

“I will miss my board. My board is absolutely fantastic. I will miss the theatre, I will miss the wineries and I will miss my friends — the friends that we have made up here,” he said.

“But they're all invited to go up north. And some of them I'm sure will,” he said, in true marketing director fashion.