"It's crazy. It's beyond belief .... Oh my God, I just want to scream!”

Krista Pickett of Faro, Yukon is one of eight Yukoners who have struck gold — but not with pick and pan.

She and her co-workers pooled their cash to buy a winning ticket worth $25 million from last Friday's Lotto Max draw.

"It's crazy. Simply crazy,” she told the Star this morning.

Pickett's phone rang early Saturday morning. She ignored it. "But when it rang twice I thought, ‘OK, this must be something important.'”

It was her sister, Shelley Shaw. "She said, ‘Krista, we're winners!

"I just couldn't believe it ....My husband came up and thought something was wrong .... I just literally couldn't function all day.”

Shaw had found out minutes before, when she received a text from her boss's daughter. The understated message merely hinted at the bounty: "Congrats” was all it said.

After confirming the win, Shaw phoned Pickett.

"She was freaking out,” Shelley said.

The sisters are administrative assistants at Tlicho Engineering and Environmental Services, where the other six winners also work, they said.

Krista, 35, is married with three kids under 12 years old.

"Trips to Disneyland are definitely happening,” she said.

"First is any debt that we have, and then taking care of family.”

Like her sister, Shaw, 32, is married and owns a home in town.

"We don't have any kids but we have lots of animals that are spoiled rotten — and more animals to come,” she said, laughing.

As children, they moved to Faro from Fogo Island, Nfld. and Labrador, with their family, who had found work associated with the town's lead-zinc mine in 1994.

The prodigal daughters left the territory for education or work several years later before moving back to Faro.

They do not intend to retire – yet.

"There's no plans to go anywhere. Faro's home,” Shaw said.

She saw fortune — in every sense — playing a role in the lucky draw.

"Chatting with our mom last night, all the things that possessed us to move to Faro, all the choices we made, it must be fate,” she said. "What if we never moved?

"Everything happens for a reason.”

The sisters said they hope to reinvest some of the money into the community.

"We've had so many ups and down in Faro with the mining community, so this win is great to bring back to home,” Shaw said.

"Little old Faro has been so good to us — Only in Faro.”

Andrea Marantz, a spokeswoman for the Western Canada Lottery Corp., confirmed the win.

"That is as big as Lotto Max gets,” Marantz said.

The winners entered into an agreement with the corporation in November 2012, when they started playing, to formalize who was participating.

One of the co-workers was responsible for purchasing the weekly tickets and keeping a spreadsheet to track the results.

The Facebook page for the Town of Faro congratulated the eight winners on Saturday:

"Our heartfelt congratulations go out to the ... lucky winners from Faro who won $25 million ... Good luck and enjoy your winnings; you all deserve it!”

Winners' identities cannot officially be confirmed until the ticket is claimed. Winners have a year to claim their ticket, which cost $5 each.

Last Friday's draw yielded a second winning ticket, purchased in B.C., worth $25 million, rounding off the $50-million, nation-wide Lotto Max jackpot.

"It can happen to anyone,” Shaw said. "One day, we woke up millionaires.”

The ticket was bought at the Discovery Store in Faro.

One of the windfall winners lives in Whitehorse, another lives in Ross River, with the others living in Faro.