She was an American woman who gave up the life of high society, comfort and privilege to live the tough life of a miner in the wilds of the Yukon and northern British Columbia.
She was small and slim, with…
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The community of Porter Creek has grown by leaps and bounds since the mid-sixties when the city of Whitehorse put lots for sale in the new subdivision at $300 for a 200 by 200-foot building lot. Times have certainly changed.…
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It had all the makings of a slapstick movie comedy. Had there been video cameras back in the summer of 1900, the last-spike ceremony for the White Pass railway would be a YouTube winner. The railway between Skagway and Whitehorse…
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In this the 125th anniversary of the formation of the North West Mounted Police, we'll take a look at mountains named for mounties who served in the Yukon as members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
Mount Wood in the…
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It’s hard to imagine a railway, anywhere in the world, that was shorter than the one that ran between Graham Inlet on Taku Arm and Atlin Lake. It was just two and half miles long, and it was called the…
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It’s a quiet little building very close to the hustle and bustle of downtown Whitehorse. It has the feeling of a sanctuary. And so it should. In 1900, when Whitehorse was just a few blocks wide and long, Anglican missionary…
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Joanie Mitchell said it best. "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone." Prophetic...that line from the song Big Yellow Taxi.
Back in the 60s, I often met up with Archie Gillespie,…
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Bankers were no different from everyone else who trekked to the Klondike goldfields. They too made the tough trip by boat, trail, dog team and sled to reach the most amazing gold strike in North American history.
As prospectors flooded…
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Anyone fortunate enough to travel the length of Lake Bennett from Carcross is travelling a voyage of incredible history. Down this 35-mile long lake came cheechakos hell-bent for the gold fields. Their boats were crude crafts made from…
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The first mayor, of the newly incorporated city of Skagway, was a Canadian. John Hislop was born in Galt, Ontario, and graduated from McGill University in Montreal as a civil engineer. At one time he taught highschool in Galt.
In…
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On a Christmas day we were mushing our way, over the Dawson trail. When poet Robert Service wrote those lines, he was not referring to three men murdererd on the Dawson trail.
However, on Christmas day, 1899, that's what…
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It's a stunning oasis, looking more like something you'd find in Wyoming or Colorado. Yet not far south of the arctic circle lies the most northerly mixed farm in Canada. When I first visited the Pelly River ranch in the…
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There may have been 300 steamboats in the Yukon in the heyday of river transport. Few remain today and none ply the river anymore. But in 1898, river was the only way to get from the coast to the Klondike…
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Now an historic attraction, the Commissioner’s Residence in Dawson City is the Yukon’s equivalent of the White House, or twenty-four (24) Sussex Drive in Ottawa. It was originally built to house the most senior government official in the territory, the…
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The SS Islander left Skagway at 7:30 p.m. on August 14th, 1901. Nothing unusual there. This impressive CPR vessel had been built in Scottish shipyards back in 1888 specifically for the inside passage run. At 240 feet, it was longer…
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The Yukon has always been a land of opportunity for visionaries. And because of them, residents of Whitehorse saw the light when on July 2, 1901 the newly formed Yukon Electric Company was awarded a franchise to provide power. It…
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John McIntyre of Pembroke, Ontario sailed north on an ocean-going vessel from San Francisco to Saint Michael, Alaska in 1895. From there, he prospected along the Yukon river system, finally ending up in Circle, Alaska in 1897. By 1898,…
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For years after the gold rush, the Yukon was a busy place both in summer and winter. River boats were the lifeline from Whitehorse to Dawson. But they were of no use in the winter.
So in 1902, the Yukon…
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