1916
Alex Van Bibber
Many Yukoners have fond memories of Alex Van Bibber. Mine is watching him take Babe Southwick’s dog team around the 14-mile course on the final…
1987
The Whitehorse Star Reports in 1987
| January | |
| January 2, 1987 | 5 people are honoured with the Commissioner's Public Service Awards: Sue and Alex Van Bibber of Champagne, Elijah Smith of Whitehorse, Johnnie Johns of Carcross and Father Jean-Marie Mouchet. |
| January 5, 1987 | WHTV increases the number of channels available, bringing it to five. |
| January 19, 1987 → January 22, 1987 |
Erik Nielsen, the Yukon's MP for almost 30 years, resigns his seat in the House of Commons (January 19, 1987). A few days later (January 22, 1987), Nielsen is named president of the Canadian Transport Commission. |
| January 29, 1987 | Jack and Agnes Andison are selected Mr. and Mrs. Yukon 1987. |
| February | |
| February 3, 1987 | The Tatchun byelection (after Roger Cole's resignation) is won by the NDP candidate and leads to the first majority NDP government in the Yukon's history. |
| February 6, 1987 | The Yukon government decides to make daytime use of headlights on Yukon highways mandatory. |
| February 6, 1987 | George Agouta Edzerdza, hereditary chief of the Tahltan people, dies at the age of 79. |
| February 6, 1987 | The Hudson's Bay Co. sells is northern stores. |
| February 13, 1987 | The Human Rights Act is approved. |
| February 24, 1987 | Curragh Resources decides to spend $50,000 to install video cameras at U.S. custom posts outside Skagway. The video cameras allow customs to leave the border posts unstaffed from midnight to 8 a.m. and still let pass Yukon Alaska Transport trucks carrying ore concentrate from Curragh's mine in Faro. It takes until fall before the new systems takes effect. |
| February 25, 1987 | After seven months of construction, six retail outlets in the new $2 million Main Street shopping mall open. |
| February 25, 1987 | Richard Sterling Finnie, a Yukon-born chronicler of northern history, dies at the age of 80. |
| February 26, 1987 → June 12, 1987 |
CHON FM arrives in Dawson City (February 26, 1987). In June, the Yukon's native broadcasting society which operates CHON-FM has received five out of 12 awards offered by the National Aboriginal Communications Society for media excellence in television and radio (June 12, 1987). |
| March | |
| March 10, 1987 | Yukon joins the rest of Canada and the U.S. in beginning Daylight Savings Time on the first Sunday of April, three weeks earlier than the practice of previous years. |
| March 18, 1987 | The federal government announces plans for a 1988 start to the $19 million replacement of the downtown Federal Building in Whitehorse. |
| March 23, 1987 | Canadian Airlines International is unveiled as the name of the new airline resulting from the mergin of Canadian Pacific and Pacific Western Airlines. |
| March 24, 1987 | Fire destroys the 55-year old Chateau Mayo hotel. |
| March 25, 1987 | Dean Elston, one of the most well-known construction bosses in the Yukon, dies at the age of 68. |
| March 27, 1987 | The $21.5 million development of the Ketza River gold mine near Ross River has been given formal approval. |
| April | |
| April 3, 1987 | A creek near Cracker Creek is named after Annie Ned, an Indian elder who is about 100 years old. The creek is the first feature the Yukon government names since the federal government transferred the responsibility for naming geographical features. The federal policy did not allow to name features after a person until the person is deceased. |
| April 10, 1987 → November 4, 1987 → November 25, 1987 → December 23, 1987 → December 30, 1987 |
Rolf Hougen, heading a group of investors, announces an offer to purchase and re-open the White Pass railway as a summer-only tourist operation (April 10, 1987). In November, Rolf Hougen asks for government investment since the purchase of the White Pass and Yukon Railway is too expensive to be profitable as a tourist-only business (November 4, 1987). November 25, 1987, a tentative agreement over the sale of the historic White Pass railway is reached between Rolf Hougen and the White Pass. However, at the end of the year (December 23, 1987), Alaska-Yukon Rail Company with businessman Rolf Hougen refuses to pay a downpayment on White Pass railway by the required deadline. While Alaska-Yukon is not giving up, it means White Pass is free to try to sell elsewhere. Meanwhile the Yukon government announced it would be interested in taking a direct ownership role in a revived White Pass railway. Also, New York railway promoter Don Primi announces he eyes again the purchase of the White Pass Railway (December 30, 1987). |
| April 13, 1987 | A plaque is placed in memory of Colonel Joseph Whiteside Boyle in St. James Church at Hampton Hill, London, England - the place where Boyle died in 1923. |
| April 21, 1987 → October 23, 1987 |
The American administration formally recommends to Congress that oil and gas exploration be allowed in the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd (April 21, 1987). In October (October 23, 1987), The Council for Yukon Indians (CYI) take the caribou issue linked to the planned oil and gas development in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, to the U.S. Congress. |
| April 23, 1987 | Skagway-bound vehicles will no longer be able to cross the U.S. border between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m., bringing to an end the 24-hour, all-season access. The only exception are Yukon-Alaska Tranposrt trucks carrying lead-zinc ore concentrates from Faro to Skagway. |
| April 29, 1987 | Dawson city's dyke is accomplished. The dyke was initiated after the 1979 flood, the worst in Dawson's history. |
| May | |
| May 1, 1987 → May 27, 1987 → September 14, 1987 → October 26, 1987 → December 23, 1987 |
Changes in the new Canadian constitution - known as the Meech Lake accord - give each of the 10 provinces a veto over the formation of new provinces, i.e. whether the Yukon or the N.W.T. can ever become provinces (May 1, 1987). The changes prompt a lawsuit by the Yukon government. (May 27, 1987). In September, Yukon's MP Audrey McLaughlin decides to vote against the Meech Lake constitutional accord. She is the only NDP MP in doing so (September 14, 1987). In October, the House of Commons votes to pass the Meech Lake accord (October 26, 1987). The two-day hearing of the federal government's appeal, in attempts to stop the Yukon's Meech Lake lawsuit gets under way in Vancouver, also in October (October 26, 1987). At the end of the year (December 23, 1987), The Yukon Court of Appeal sides with the federal government and kills the Yukon lawsuit against the Meech Lake accord. |
| May 11, 1987 | The Yukon coat-of-arms are back up at The Law Courts, nine months after a battle between Justice minister Roger Kimmerly and Supreme Court Justice Harry Madison that led to their removal. |
| May 15, 1987 | In a bid to prevent repeats of a road blockade by the Ross River Indian Band and to solve the uncertainty over its legality, the Yukon government formally designates most Yukon roads as "public" thereby making it illegal to block them. |
| May 19, 1987 → August 5, 1987 → October 6, 1987 |
Shingle Point, a Yukon radar station, is converted into a new North Warning Station (May 19, 1987). It is the first radar station in the new North Warning System that is turned on (October 6, 1987). In the summer, the department of National Defence scrapps plans to build a north warning radar station near Old Crow. Instead, the National Defence Department eyes a site in the North Yukon National Park (August 5, 1987). |
| May 26, 1987 | The S.S. Klondike turns 50. |
| May 27, 1987 | Video DJ Christopher Ward visits Whitehorse to film background shots for MuchMusic. Ward hosted an AC/DC film while in town, signs pictures, gives out prizes at Erik's and is interviewed by WHTV. |
| June | |
| June 11, 1987 | The Dawson City museum re-opens after extensive renovations. |
| June 12, 1987 | The Alsek River is officially added to the Canadian Heritage River System. |
| June 17, 1987 | Northern Television Systems of Whitehorse (WHTV) plans to form a partnership with Toronto-based Canadian Satellite Communications and provide cable for more subdivisions and 10 rural communities by the fall of 1988. |
| June 26, 1987 | The official opening of the "skywalk" between Shopper's Plaza and Hougen's is celebrated. |
| July | |
| July 7, 1987 | Curragh Resources formally announces a $90 million plan to begin mining it Grum and Vangorda deposits. |
| July 10, 1987 | The Council for Yukon Indians (CYI) accepts Ta'an Dun as 13th band. |
| July 17, 1987 | Champagne-Aishihik elder Solomon Charlie is killed in a motor accident July 13, 1987. He was 81. |
| July 17, 1987 | Art Pearson is elected president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce. |
| July 21, 1987 → August 11, 1987 |
Audrey McLaughlin wins the byelection and becomes a successor to Yukon M.P. Erik Nielsen (July 21, 1987). August 11, 1987 Audrey McLaughlin is officially sworn in in Ottawa as Yukon's member of Parliament. |
| August | |
| August 4, 1987 | The City Council approves a contract to reconstruct Centennial Street in Porter Creek eliminating the possibility of work on two Hillcrest roads. |
| August 5, 1987 | The federal government agrees to take a $4 million loss on a 6 year loan it made to the White Pass and Yukon Railway in 1981. |
| August 5, 1987 | The city of Whitehorse is looking into adding a 3rd lane for the Robert Service bridge between downtown and Riverdale. |
| August 7, 1987 | In accordance with the Committee for Original People's Entitlement (COPE) Agreement of 1984, Herschel Island becomes Yukon's first territorial park. |
| August 12, 1987 | Rolf Hougen receives the Yukoner Award from the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon for his effort in trying to transform the White Pass and Yukon Railway into a tourist attraction. |
| September | |
| September 23, 1987 | The pope visits Fort Simpson, NWT. |
| September 24, 1987 | The Yukon Municipal Board recommends the expansion of Dawson. |
| October | |
| October 5, 1987 | Alaska sues the U.S. government over proposed northern overflights of plutonium, a practice that the Yukon is also fighting. |
| October 13, 1987 | The White Pass and Yukon Corporation which owns most of the downtown riverbank land, decides to consider developing the downtown waterfront on its own instead of selling the land. |
| October 23, 1987 | The Yukon and federal governments announce they have reached a deal on land-use planning for the Yukon. |
| October 29, 1987 | Yukoners Rolf Hougen and Ted Harrison receive Order of Canada awards in Ottawa. Hougen is named an officer of the Order, Harrison is named as member. |
| October 30, 1987 | It is revealed that money trouble has hit "Target Downtown", the three-year-old initative aimed at beautifying and revitalizing the downtown core. |
| November | |
| November 6, 1987 → November 10, 1987 |
The City Council turns down a proposal for underground parking development made by Rolf Hougen (November 6, 1987). The City promises its own parking development (November 10, 1987). |
| November 16, 1987 → November 30, 1987 |
A 5.3 earthquake marks the beginning of a series of earthquakes over two weeks in the Whitehorse area (November 16, 1987). The last earthquake of the series measures 7.5 on the Richter scale and leads to a tsunami warnings and evacuations along the Pacific Coast (November 30, 1987). |
| November 17, 1987 | The Yukon cabinet approves extension of Dawson City's boundary: the town becomes 3,5 larger January 1, 1988. |
| November 27, 1987 | Yukon archeologist Bill Irving dies at the age of 60. |
| December | |
| December 4, 1987 | Canadian National announces it has put NorthwesTel up for sale. |
| December 4, 1987 | Statistics show that 1987 has been a record breaking years for Yukon miner in terms of exploration and production. |
| December 8, 1987 | The U.S. government comes up with another $8 million to complete the Shakwak Highway Project along the Haines Road. |
