I didn't really know the elderly gentleman who spent his days in the back room of the little Yukon Electrical clapboard office on Main Street, except that my school chum, Willard, enjoyed stopping there to say hello. To me, he…
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Few women who took part in the Klondike Gold Rush stayed in the territory very long. Even fewer climbed the rugged Chilkoot Pass. The celebrated Martha Black climbed and stayed. So did Émilie Tremblay, and she was the…
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For many, it's the most spectacular feature of the Yukon river. It is a canyon carved by thousands of centuries of swift-moving water. At one time, it was considered the most dangerous obstacle on the way to the Klondike…
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Bold photographers, who packed cumbersome equipment over the Klondike trails, emerged with a photo story of incredible hardship, endurance and valour. There's little doubt that the Yukon story would not be the exciting tale it is had it not been…
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William Samuel McGee had no idea that, just because he had an account in the Bank of Commerce in Whitehorse, his name would make him world famous. The poet Robert Service, however, thought the name had a poetic ring…
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Though much has been written over the years, the first news accounts from the Klondike came from a pioneering journalist. In the spring of 1898, the Toronto Globe newspaper got caught up in the incredible story unfolding in the Yukon…
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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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Among the gold-fevered stampeders who tried to cash in on the Gold Rush was a professional gunfighter named Wyatt Earp. Yep! The same man who was once the Sheriff of Dodge City. The same guy who carved his name in…
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Seattle was not destined to be the major jumping-off place for miners heading to the Klondike gold fields. San Francisco, or even Vancouver, should have been, or could have been. Prior to 1897, San Francisco dominated maritime trade with Alaska…
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In far off France in that dismal year of 1916, men in the mud braced themselves for yet another shelling. Both the Allied forces of Britain and Canada and the German army had reached a stalemate. The war to end…
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Skookum Jim was born, in the 1850's, into the Dakl'aweidi clan of Tagish, son of the Tagish Deisheetaan Chief Kaachgaawaa and Gus'duteen, his mother, who was from the Telegraph Creek area. His birth name was Keish, which means wolf. He…
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