According to a friend who knew him in the Yukon, William Taylor was the dude of Dawson City. Not much was really known about the background of this flamboyant character who worked for the Yukon Gold Corporation, on and off,…
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In the fall of 2010, the Vancouver Opera Company will present its first full-length commissioned piece for its main stage. The opera is based on the real-life story of Lillian Alling. You probably never heard of her, but if she…
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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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When he quit his job as a physical education instructor for the YMCA in Seattle, in 1896, Tom Lippy had a hunch. He could not pin it down, but something in his muscular body told him to head north. He…
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He was called the Mad Trapper of Rat River. There is no compelling evidence that he was mad. There is plenty of evidence that he wanted to be left alone. But when he wounded a Mountie, his days as a…
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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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Robert Service always said all of the characters in his poems were fictional. Well, we know now that this is not quite true when it comes to Sam McGee. There was a Sam McGee in the Yukon…
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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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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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Ian Tyson is one of my favourite singing story tellers. Always has been. He wrote a wonderful song called "50 Years Ago".
If I could roll back the years,
Back when I was young and limber,
Loose as…
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2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Robert W. Service, who passed away on September 11th , 1958. He spent just eight of his 84 years in the Yukon Territory, yet the stories he told made him one…
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