Sackville’s own Colleen Wheaton has been cutting hair for 42 and a half years, and she still gets up every day looking forward to her work.

Not only has Wheaton had a successful and lengthy career as a hairstylist, but she’s also been a small business operator for nearly as long. This month, Wheaton’s York Street shop, Mane Attraction, is celebrating 40 years in business.

Erica Butler called up Wheaton to congratulate her on four decades in business, talk about the changes she’s witnessed over the years in Sackville, and check in on her experience of working as a hairdresser during the pandemic.

Here’s the conversation:

Mane Attraction first opened up in January 1981, in a small space behind the Audio Loft and Home Hardware. After nine years, Wheaton felt she needed more space, and moved to York Street, where Blind Forest Books is today.

Then the house at 36 York Street came up for sale. “And I thought well, bite the bullet, Colleen. Let’s go for it,” Wheaton recalls. “So that’s what I did. And we added on to the front of the house, and it just went well from there on. That was back in ’99 when I moved to my recent location.”

“I’ve seen a lot of changes,” says Wheaton. “Like right from the Fawcett Foundry to the Enterprise Foundry, which was owned by my family, to the new building of the Royal Bank, the Scotia Bank, those new buildings going up.”

Wheaton even recalls years where rumours of Mount Allison going under, and worry about the devastation that would bring to the local economy, were top of mind.

She recalls previous businesses like Steadman’s and Goodwin’s, and Pizza Delight when it was located downtown. “It was a booming town when I started up,” says Wheaton. “Unfortunately, things go down.”

Wheaton says the increase in the number of cars people owned contributed to Sackville’s shrinking downtown over the years. “To me, I feel it has a lot to do with the fact that people were starting to get two cars in the family,” says Wheaton, with a car always available to go shopping in Amherst or Moncton.

“People were not shopping in town anymore,” she says. “They were moving on to bigger boxstores and whatnot, and we’re stuck in the middle.”

But when Colleen thinks of Sackville, she’s mostly grateful.

“It’s a beautiful town,” she says. “I love it. It’s given me everything that I could ever ask for. It gave me a life, it gave me an income, it gave me my family. All my siblings are here. So Sackville has given me a good life and I’m very proud of the town.”

Many different hairdressers have worked at Mane Attraction over the years, some of whom went on to open their own shops. “I just said to myself, you know, I’m not here to make a living off of them. I’m here to let them make a living,” says Wheaton.

Two stylists currently work with Wheaton at the shop, where she works three days a week.

Impressively, Wheaton says she still loves her work. “In 42 years, I’ve never once got up in the morning and said I don’t want to do this anymore,” she says.

Mane Attraction is operating under the province’s revised orange level restrictions which require masks, collecting contact information, and taking the temperature of clients before they are served. Wheaton says it takes more time, but it’s better than the alternative, being closed down, as hairdressers where during the October orange phase.

“When you’re self employed, you don’t get paid if you don’t work,” says Wheaton. “Simple as that.”

Wheaton says she’s not sure when she will retire yet, though she is not planning on sticking around into her old age.

“I really don’t want to be that person on the ATV news saying ‘she’s 80 years old and still cutting hair!’” says Wheaton. “But when I check around in Sackville and the surrounding area, I’m probably one of the oldest, still working, full-time hairdressers. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” she says, laughing.

“It’s gotta be good.”