1978
The Whitehorse Star Reports in 1978
| January | |
| January 3, 1978 | Yukon pioneer Robert Porslid passes away at the age of 79. |
| January 4, 1978 | The town of Skagway loses a living landmark when a fire guts the famed "White House" hotel on December 20, 1978. |
| January 12, 1978 | Dome Petroleum Ltd. announces new oil finds in the Beaufort Sea. |
| January 12, 1978 | Bellanca Development and Solar Construction Ltd. announce to tear down the donut shop and several houses on Second Avenue to begin construction of a new six-story building. |
| January 26, 1978 | Clifford J. Rogers, one time president and chairman of the board of directors of the White Pass and Yukon Corporation Ltd., dies at Seattle, January 25, 1978 at the age of 90. |
| February | |
| February 2, 1978 | Mr. And Mrs. Alex Hill are named Mr. and Mrs. Yukon 1978. |
| February 15, 1978 | Northern Affairs Minister Hugh Faulkner announces that portions of pipeline revenues and all other new territorial taxes will be exempted from annual federal deficit grants to establish a Yukon Heritage fund. |
| February 16, 1978 | Long time Yukon resident Edith Krautschneider passes away in Ottawa February 11, 1978 at the age of 84. |
| February 24, 1978 | Alan Innes Taylor is awarded the Yukon Heritage Award on February 20, 1978. |
| March | |
| March 6, 1978 | Preparations are underway to reactivate the Haines Junction asphalt plant which has been dormant for more than a decade. |
| March 6, 1978 | 1978 license plates are issued with a new number and lettering system. The old system was running out of numbers. |
| March 29, 1978 | The old log skyscraper in Whitehorse is up for sale. The asking price of $150,000 puts the sale beyond the range of most historical associations. |
| April | |
| April 7, 1978 | Ted Geddes of Teslin, founder of Yukon's Trapper Association, passes awayof a heart attack at the age of 60. |
| April 11, 1978 | One of the oldest native Yukoners, Elsie Isaac of Aishihik, passes away. She was in her late 90s. |
| April 13, 1978 | Dr. Kay MacDonald is named 1977 citizen of the year by the Whitehorse Kiwanis Club. |
| April 17, 1978 | 27 year old Joe Jack is elected the Yukon New Democratic Party candidate for the upcoming federal elections. |
| April 20, 1978 | The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce expresses its disapproval of possible food price controls in the Yukon as suggested by the Yukon government. |
| April 21, 1978 | Old Crow wants its airstrip moved. The 5,500 foot airstrip is in the way of building seven homes in the community. |
| May | |
| May 18, 1978 | American travellers are no longer able to carry their guns through Canada, as a strict prohibition of in-transit possession of restricted weapons by non-residents will go into effect June 15, 1978. |
| June | |
| June 2, 1978 | A fire burning inside the Tantalus Butte coal mine closes the Carmacks mine. No injuries are reported. |
| June 2, 1978 | The Watson Lake branch of the Bank of Montreal closes July 31, 1978 and transfers all its business to the main branch in Whitehorse. |
| June 9, 1978 | It is announced that the Whitehorse Inn will be torn down during the winter to make room for a new Bank of Commerce. |
| June 12, 1978 | A vote to bring cable TV to Faro ends in a tie, delaying the decision. |
| June 16, 1978 → September 6, 1978 |
The Kluane Tribal Brotherhood announces to set up a native-oriented school for kindergarten to grade three students in Burwash Landing. The school is officially opened September 5, 1978. |
| June 16, 1978 | G.I. and Martha Cameron celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. |
| June 28, 1978 | Executive Committee member Dan Lang resigns his position because of an "irreparable … breach of trust" between the Commissioner Art Pearson and ExCom. |
| July | |
| July 4, 1978 | A French red wine specially selected, bottled and shipped is put on the shelves of Yukon Liquor stores. The new wine is labelled "Selection du Yukon" and will not be available anywhere else in Canada. |
| July 6, 1978 | Minister of Northern Development Hugh Faulkner announces a resource development freeze on 15,000 square miles of land in the northern Yukon to begin protecting the 110,000 caribou Porcupine Herd. |
| July 7, 1978 | Deaconess Hilda Hellaby celebrates her 50th year in the Anglican Church. |
| July 13, 1978 | The "New Whitehorse Northern Times Daily" applies for Canadian Press wire service. If the daily paper joins the Whitehorse Star and the weekly Yukon News, Whitehorse would join Montreal and Toronto as a three-newspaper town. |
| July 14, 1978 | A new law is proclaimed in Dawson City which prohibits drinking in public in the town as of July 15, 1978. |
| July 18, 1978 | The First Annual Midnight Dome Race is held July 20, 1978 in Dawson City. |
| July 21, 1978 | One of the last real oldtimers, Bill Johnson, passes away July 19, 1978 in Carcross. He was 102. |
| July 26, 1978 | A beautification scheme for downtown Whitehorse which would make Main Street a road for shoppers and the waterfront a historical attraction is approved in principal by the Downtown Whitehorse Businessmen's Association. The White Pass train station would be upgraded to become the focal point of Main Street and First Avenue would be renamed Front Street. |
| July 27, 1978 | Patients at Whitehorse General Hospital are evacuated as the personnel goes on strike. The strike is over August 2, 1978. |
| July 27, 1978 | The ministry of Northern affairs announces that lack of money delays completion of the Dempster Highway until the fall of 1979. |
| August | |
| August 3, 1978 | Labour minister John Munro comes to Whitehorse for the official opening of the department's northern office. |
| August 7, 1978 | Flo Whyard, minister of health and human resources, decides not to run in the coming territorial election. |
| August 10, 1978 | Carcross old-timer Johnnie Johns celebrates his 80th birthday. |
| August 15, 1978 | Two engraved brass survey stakes are driven into the ground to officially open the Shakwak project to rebuild and pave 516 kilometres of the Haines Road and the Alaska Highway in northern B.C. and the Yukon. |
| August 16, 1978 | Commissioner Art Pearson resigns from his job as Yukon commissioner. |
| August 16, 1978 | Foothills Pipe Lines (Yukon) Ltd. announces the Alaska Highway Natural Gas Pipeline has been delayed at least nine months due to the indecision by the U.S. Congress in passing President Carter's energy bill. |
| August 24, 1978 | Hugh Faulkner, minister of Indian and northern affairs, announces that the next Yukon commissioner will not be an elected member of the territorial government, but a federal appointee. |
| August 28, 1978 | The desire for a commercial cable television service for Faro results in the merger of competing cable companies into Satellite Communications Incorporated (SATCO) of Whitehorse. The company was formed by TNTA, Total North Communications, Northern Television Systems and Northern Satellites Systems, in order to end the competition which had delayed the building of a cable system in Faro since early June. |
| September | |
| September 8, 1978 | Yukon Honda is officially opened. |
| September 11, 1978 | Yukon MP Erik Nielsen suffers a defeat September 9, 1978 when Kluane MLA Hilda Watson wins the race for the Progressive Conservative party's candidate for the upcoming federal elections. |
| September 14, 1978 | Rolf Hougen attends the annual meeting of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Halifax September 17-19, 1978. |
| September 18, 1978 | Klondike M.L.A., Fred Berger is chosen leader of the Yukon New Democratic Party by acclamation for the fourth year running. |
| September 22, 1978 → November 15, 1978 |
Sternwheeler Plaza announces to build a new shopping centre at Klondike and Lewes Blvd. in Riverdale with retail stores and two theatres. On November 15, 1978, Whitehorse City Council block the permission for the two theatres. |
| September 29, 1978 | Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Ltd. announces it has been successful in its bid to take over Whitehorse Copper Mines. |
| September 29, 1978 | Clinton Creek, lots and equipment, is sold to buyer from Canada and the United States for $2.4 million. |
| October | |
| October 2, 1978 | Former Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce Iain MacKay becomes the first leader of the Yukon Liberal party. |
| October 2, 1978 | The British Columbia Indian community close to the Yukon border is suffering from a tuberculosis outbreak whose origin is unknown. |
| October 3, 1978 | Residents of Old Crow vote overwhelmingly on Saturday 23, 1978 in favour of banning alcohol from the community. |
| October 16, 1978 | The Alaska Highway gas pipeline project gets its final approval from the U.S. Congress. |
| October 18, 1978 | A new law coming into effect November 1, 1978 in Teslin prohibits public drinking in the community. |
| October 19, 1978 → December 20, 1978 |
Art Pearson officially leaves - but does not resign from - his position as commissioner October 18, 1978 in the face of possible criminal charges. The RCMP have been investigating Pearson and Yukon Senator Paul Lucier in connection with mining claim transfers. On December 20, 1978, Art Pearson pleads guilty and gets 6 months probation. |
| October 31, 1978 | Frank Fingland, long-time Yukoner and federal civil servant, becomes the chief executive officer of the Yukon for a period of up to three months pending the appointment of a permanent commissioner (from November 1978 to January 1979). |
| November | |
| November 15, 1978 | The Porter Creek road designed to lessen traffic congestion on Two-mile Hill, is recalled as estimated costs to build the road have risen 400 per cent. |
| November 21, 1978 | The Yukon Conservative Progressive Party wins 11 out of 16 seats in the Yukon elections. |
| November 30, 1978 | CBC celebrates its 20th anniversary of operation in the Yukon on December 1, 1978. |
| December | |
| December 6, 1978 | Foothills Oil Pipe Line Company and White Pass & Yukon Route announce their partnership in a proposed venture to pipe oil from the port of Skagway to the Yukon and on to Edmonton. |
| December 8, 1978 | Hilda Watson resigns as leader of the territorial Progressive Conservative Party. |
| December 13, 1978 → December 15, 1978 |
In the territorial election, the number of Yukon ridings is increased from 12 to 16. The Progressive Conservatives take 11 seats, the Liberals 2, the NDP 1, and Independents 2. Progressive Conservative party leader Hilda Watson loses. The new Progressive Conservative governement nominates interim leader Chris Pearson and two other newly elected members, Howard Tracey and Grafton Njootli, along with former education minister Dan Lang, to form the new Executive Committee. Ken McKinnon, who ran as an Independent, is defeated. The new Executive Committee creates a new portfolio called economic development. Chris Pearson is responsible for the portfolio. |
| December 21, 1978 → December 28, 1978 |
Whitehorse mayor Ione Christensen is officially appointed Commissioner of the Yukon by Hugh Faulkner, Minister of Northern Development. On December 28, 1878, Ione Christensen steps down as mayor of Whitehorse. Deputy mayor Art Deer takes over as interim mayor. Elections are called for February 1, 1978. |
