A masked man entered the Takhini Gas Ltd. gas bar with a gun shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday.

He was wearing a black hood and approached the counter with a gun, where Karen Greer was working alone.

The man pushed her back from the cash, 'roughing her up a bit,' before grabbing around $800 from the cash, according to Jenny Gruber who witnessed the crime on a television security monitor.

The man then fled in a vehicle parked outside, heading up the Takhini Hot Springs Road and into the Pilot Mountain subdivision, Gruber, the co-owner of the family-run business, said this morning.

The man had another vehicle waiting for him there, she said in an interview.

She made the 911 call to Whitehorse RCMP while the robbery was underway, as she watched it occur on television security monitors in her house.

Gruber lives above the gas station, located at Mile 3.8 of the Mayo Road. She and her family have video surveillance equipment in the store with monitors in both their office and their home above the shop.

'I was going about my normal everyday life, glancing over every so often,' she said.

Then the man entered the store. 'He was hooded and armed and he attacked,' she said.

It took a moment, though, for her to realize that the robbery was real.

'At first, we thought maybe it was just playing,' she said. 'But in the matter of a second or two, we realized it wasn't playing.'

She called 911 at 9:07 p.m., according to the RCMP.

Police arrived on the scene within minutes, she said.

By that time, though, customers had already begun helping to catch the robber. Some had followed him and seen him leave his first escape car.

Quite a chase ensued, according to Gruber.

Upon arriving at the service station, officers, with the help of a service dog and aerial assistance from a low-flying plane, began combing the area for the suspect.

They set up a perimeter in the area surrounding the gas station to prevent the suspect from escaping.

At that time, police believed the man was trying to escape through the nearby woods.

While some of the details of the chase were unclear to her, Gruber said, the suspect allegedly stole a farmer's Bobcat plow and took off into the woods.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., police say, they noticed a Bobcat on the road close to the gas station.

Rather than stopping when police ordered him to, the driver of the Bobcat turned into the woods.

'The driver turned into the bush, crashed through a wooden fence, and attempted to plow his way through thick timber in order to evade police,' police said.

Const. Calista MacLeod said the man was 'knocking over trees' as he attempted to evade police by driving into the forest.

Shortly after the chase, the man was arrested.

The stolen $800 was recovered as well as the air pistol which was used in the hold-up.

The man was also carrying some illegal drugs. Police are not releasing the quantity nor the kind of drugs that were found on the suspect, whose name was not released.

After reviewing tapes of the robbery, Gruber said she realized the man had been in the store about half an hour before the robbery.

'I guess he was casing the store,' she said.

This is the first robbery or theft her family has experienced in their store.

'We had an absolutely awesome response from the police and from our customers,' Gruber said. 'It was the teamwork, especially with the police, that really nailed him.'

While the experience was frightening, she said the most important thing is that everyone is OK.

'We'll be thinking about how to make it safer,' she said.

Gruber explained that the security cameras were originally installed to make the women who work in the shop feel less alone. It was a preventative measure that she says has already paid off many times.

Greer could not be reached for comment as she was back at work this morning at the Takhini Hot Springs.

Facing charges of robbery, theft over $5,000, and resist of arrest, among others, a 30-year-old Whitehorse man is set to appear in territorial court today.