In the middle of a sunny summer week in Whitehorse, the town's only ice cream store has closed its doors indefinitely.

The Dairy Queen on 2nd Ave. has closed its doors after owner Lawrence Thornton was unable to find a buyer, and was forced to succumb to personal demands.

'Personal reasons, I'm going in for surgery,' Thornton said. 'This has been in the works for about a year.'

'It's been for sale for awhile,' he added. 'But I haven't got anybody with interest in it.'

He said he has put off closing it as long as possible, but was forced to shut the doors last night to accommodate his upcoming surgery. Throughout this last spring, the Dairy Queen had closed intermittently.

This time is permanent, he said, until someone else can take it over.

Full-time staff were informed about the closure in advance, but part-time staff, primarily students, were not.

Thornton has owned the franchise since 1975 and has seen it through numerous renovations.

The Dairy Queen has been a staple of Whitehorse's downtown landscape for as long as some locals can remember it as a quaint little ice cream shop, as far back as the 1960s. It was the city's first fast-food franchise restaurant.