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Yukon Nuggets

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1909

Big Alex McDonald (King of the Klondike)

"Don't look so sad, I know it's over. But life goes on, and this old world will keep on turning." (Song - For the Good Times - Ray Price)

He was a huge, seemingly uncoordinated character who sported a preposterous…

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1909

First Elected Territorial Council

In the summer of 1909, the Yukon was in the midst of an election campaign for what would become the first wholly elected territorial council. Ten men, eight from Dawson city and two from Whitehorse, were elected. But political power…

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1909

H.C. Barley, White Pass Photographer

Yukon history owes a lot to Harry C. Barley, a man most people have probably never heard of. Like other photographers who made their living when the Yukon was young, Barley toiled in the shadows of greatness. In this case,…

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1909

Iceworms

As if it wasn't cold enough in the Klondike, the legendary Yukon poet Robert Service had to create a mythical creature that nested on glaciers. Iceworms in a cocktail was the poet's idea of a practical joke. But the…

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1909

Isaac Stringer - The bishop who ate his boots

Isaac Stringer was born in Ontario in April, 1866. In 1888, he enrolled at Wycliffe College to study theology. In 1892, Stringer heard a speech about the need for missionaries in the Arctic. The idea appealed to young Stringer.

In…

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1909

Jeff

July 1909. The dog days of summer were upon Yukon once more. Jeff didn't have much to do since his work was usually done in the winter. So, in the heat of the mid-July sun, Jeff was usually found lying…

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1909

Streets of Whitehorse - 4

The streets of Whitehorse are paved with stories...stories which go back long before the streets were paved. Those dusty, sometimes muddy, often frozen streets today yield nuggets about Lowe, Hoge, Jeckell, Taylor and Drury.

Last time, we walked the White…

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1908

Bowling in Whitehorse

The North Star Athletic Club building was the hub of Whitehorse recreational activity from 1900 until it burned down in 1943. This was the club in Robert Service’s poem about Bob Smart’s dream. It was the place where people…

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1908

Murder in the Yukon - part four

In the fall of 1907, a would-be prospector named Ned Elfors met Yukoners David Bergman and Emil Anderson in Seattle. The three men decided to travel together to Whitehorse. When they arrived in the spring of 1908, they bought a…

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1908

Whitehorse City Band

It was quite the show back in May of 1908 in Whitehorse. The town’s movers and shakers had been practicing in private for a good part of the winter. And now they were gonna strut their stuff on the long…

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1907

Christie Pass

There's a beautiful pass which connects the Keele River in the Northwest Territories to the Ross River in the Yukon. It was named by dominion surveyor Joseph Keele in 1907 for a brave Yukon bushman who had more than one…

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1907

Klondike Twelve Mile Ditch

It was called the Twelve Mile Ditch. But it was much more than a ditch, and a good deal longer than 12 miles.

Water was the key ingredient. Without water, none of the gold mining in the Klondike could be…

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1907

McClintock Bay

The pleasant bay and river that flows into it, on Marsh Lake is named for a member of Britain's Royal Navy, Francis McClintock, who solved the mystery of the missing Franklin expedition.

The greatest Arctic expedition of all time…

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1906

Crocus

March 21st. It's the first day of spring - and we're on the way to another glorious Yukon summer of fun in the sun. We hope. Spring comes quickly in the Yukon. One day, you think the endless winter will…

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1906

Marjorie Rambeau - From the Dawson Stage to Hollywood Fame

When she was only ten years old, Marjorie Rambeau performed in the mining camps of Nome.

“...With my hair cropped close ...the  men would shake gold dust into my cap, “ said Rambeau later in her career, “But nobody suspected…

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1906

The Battle of the Rainmakers

The miners of the Klondike raised their eyes to the cloudless sky, waiting for a miracle. It was July, nineteen oh six (1906), and the region hadn’t seen rain in a month. In fact, there hadn’t been enough rain for…

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1905

Joe Boyle - Stanley Cup 1905

It took vision, bold character, a touch of theatrics, and a lot of money. Big Joe Boyle had all of these qualities and more. Thus, in the winter of 1904, Boyle and ten other Klondikers set out for a 23…

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1905

The Klondike Mines Railway

Imagine a railway running from Dawson City , along the Klondike river and up the Bonanza Creek valley to Grand Forks and beyond. Sounds like a tourist train dream these days. Back in the early 1900s it was a…

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1904

Carcross

It's one of the oldest areas of human settlement in the Yukon. At the beautiful place at the narrows between Lake Bennett and Tagish, where large herds of caribou crossed on their annual migration, stone tools perhaps five thousand years…

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1904

Largest Nugget

Ain’t just the gold that I’m wanting, so much as just finding the gold. What a great line about gold mining especially when it comes not from a miner, but a poet. So then imagine finding not just the gold,…

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1904

Robert Service

God bless the cakes and bless the jam
Bless the cheese and cold boiled ham
Bless the scones Aunt Jenny makes
And save us all from belly aches. Ahmen.

You'd hardly think that bit of doggerel would…

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