There are very few historic photographs of the great poet Robert Service at his cabin in Dawson City. For those that do exist we can thank a local dentist. One shows Service, pipe in hand, a bicycle…
Psst. Wanna buy a used bridge in Brooklyn? How about some ocean front property in Arizona? Con artists and their marks are a dime a dozen. Always were.
Take for example back in 1859. That year, Czarist Russia offered to…
There’s a neat well-maintained pathway with, of all things, stairs. It leads from Alexander Street to the airport. But when I was a kid in the fifties, the trail to the airport via Puckett’s Gulch hadn’t changed much since…
They were dreamers, quacks, salesmen, cowboys, and - mostly - gamblers. Some found gold but most did not. However, a few used their gold rush experiences to good advantages in later life. Such was the case of George Lewis Rickard.…
The mountain passes into the interior of the Yukon were both feared and fearsome. So it is little wonder that it took an event of the magnitude of the Klondike Gold Rush to entice more than a brave few to…
He was one of the select few of his day who understood showmanship, a craft he learned in Dawson City. With this talent, he would go on to turn a sleepy little town in California into a world famous motion…
Most Klondikers of the 19th century staked gold claims if they could. Joe Ladue staked what could be called land claims. And they brought him a fortune.
Joseph Ladue came to the Yukon from Schuyler, New York. He arrived in…
The famous Whitehorse rapids, the toughest stretch of water on the Yukon river, lies beneath a large man-made lake. Schwatka Lake bears the name of an American army Lieutenant who named many of the geographical features along the entire length…
Many places in the Yukon are named for people who worked for the Hudson Bay Company. And most of it is due to the explorations of Robert Campbell, who named one of the most important rivers in the Yukon after…
As early as 1887 it became apparent to the Canadian government that mining activity in the Yukon district was growing. But most of the action was by Americans. Canada needed to know exactly where American territory ended and Canadian land…
There's no doubt when you are looking for gold, you need a lot of luck. And that's why Yukon gold miners needed surveyors who came to the territory not to search for gold, but to map the gold fields.