He was a salesman, from the American Midwest, who moved to Seattle to sell goods for a local printing company. In 1897, when he saw miners coming off a ship on the Seattle waterfront carrying their life's possessions and wealth…
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"It’s haunting and haunting and luring me on as of old". So said the poet, Robert Service. Was he talking about the Yukon’s most famous hotel located in Carcross? Maybe! Because it is haunted. The hotel had been…
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In Dawson City they called him Swiftwater Bill. He liked that. You see, Bill Gates was a little man with a big ego. He told everyone who’d listen that he earned his nickname because of his prowess in steering boats…
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It’s hard to believe but there was a time when American armed forces radio (AFRTS) or radio Moscow were the signals of choice in the isolated north. They were the only choices.
In 1944, Whitehorse got a military-operated volunteer radio…
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When the all-out German bombardment of London, England, began in the summer of 1940, the famed poet Robert Service, his wife, Germaine, and daughter, Iris, boarded the Canadian Pacific ocean liner, the Princess Helene, and sailed to Canada.
The North…
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When the men and women of the American army, along with civilian contractors, were building the Alaska Highway, there wasn't much time for entertainment. There wasn't much entertainment to be found, but in the spring of 1943 there was an…
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The year was 1945. Six long years of war in Europe and the Pacific were coming to an end. Most of the military and civilian construction workers who had built the Alaska Highway and the Canol pipeline had left the…
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When the last of the war-year hangars burned down in Whitehorse in 1999, the tragic event ended an era that fills the memory banks of those of us fortunate enough to watch - or play - hockey in the hangar.
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When Andy Gilpin and Ross King were transferred to the RCAF station in Whitehorse in 1947, the last thing on their minds was the roller-coaster ride upon which they were about to embark. Both were young hockey players with promise.…
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As the quest for Olympic gold and glory get underway in Turin, Italy, Les McLaughlin takes us on a look back when two hockey players from Whitehorse were part of the most improbable hockey gold medal Canada ever won.
When…
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Photographs of early Bennett City, Whitehorse and Dawson show street scenes of gaudy store fronts with hand-painted advertising at its very best. The signs, extolling the virtues of diverse business establishments, weren’t like the neon sixties or the plastic electric…
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It's not often you get to meet a legendary character who was cremated and lived to tell the tale, but one day, years ago in Whitehorse, I did.
When Sam McGee came to the Yukon around 1898, he had no…
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He was as colourful as the characters he wrote about.
Harry J. Boyle was the editor and owner of the Whitehorse Star from 1954 to 1963. The office was in a shack on Main Street, but the editorial office…
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