1918

John Zaccarelli

John Zaccarelli was born in 1881 in Pravia, Italy. At a young age, his family moved to Vancouver Island, near Nanaimo. He was just 16 years old when he heard about the arrival of the ship the Excelsior in Seattle…

1918

S.S. Tutshi

She’s a burned out hulk now, and her ruins lie in Carcross where she was built. In her day, the steamer Tutshi was a class-act of the Yukon riverboat fleet. The S.S. Tutshi was one of the largest riverboats…

1918

The Sinking of the Sophia

It was the worst disaster the Yukon had ever known. The elite of the mining and transportation community, on board the Princess Sophia, were lost in the ice-cold waters of the Inside Passage, October 23, 1918.

The Princess Sophia left…

1918

Who was Dan McGrew?

A bunch of the boys were a whooping it up in the malamute saloon.
The kid that handled the music box was playing a jagtime tune,
Back of the bar in a solo game sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

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1918

Wop May

August 21, 1918. Eight yellow Sopwith Camels circled high in the cloudless sky, thousands of feet above the carnage on the ground below. Squadron leader Roy Brown was in command of the Allied squadron. The veteran ace from Carleton Place…

1917

Pueblo Mine disaster

The Whitehorse Copper Belt is - in some ways - cursed. The mineral belt, running for about 30 kilometers, is hidden just under the hills to the west of town. Copper deposits were noted here as early as 1897, by…

1916

Alex Van Bibber

Many Yukoners have fond memories of Alex Van Bibber. Mine is watching him take Babe Southwick’s dog team around the 14-mile course on the final two days of the 1965 Sourdough Rendezvous dog-sled race.

Babe was Alex’s sister-in-law.…

1916

Gagoff Hanged

Sheriff George Brimston asked the man with the noose around his neck if he had any last words. The reply, in Russian, was 'nyet'. "May God have mercy on your soul", said Brimston. The trap door was sprung. The first…

1916

George Black 1916

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…

1916

Skookum Jim Mason

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…

1914

Boyle Yukon Motor Machine Gun Company

Frozen in time. A picture of Dawson's finest young men. All in uniform. Fifty young men off to Europe to fight for King and country. The sign on the building behind them reads Dawson to Berlin 7460 miles. For most…

1914

Pantages theatres (Vancouver)

The tentacles of the Klondike gold rush reached across the world like some gigantic primaeval octopus leaving in their wake both success and failure for those involved. A Greek immigrant experienced both during his colourful life and one of his…

1913

Krautschneider House

In the golden days of the 1950s, sports was king in Whitehorse. As with many towns, the hockey, basketball and softball leagues had some real superstar players supported by many journeymen. Such was George Krautschneider. George was a softball pitcher…

1912

Gold Dredge #1 is blown up

It was an ingenious piece of police work. It wasn't the police who came up with the idea, but it worked, and resulted in the arrest of the man who blew up Canadian Gold dredge number one.

When the gold…

1912

Pearl Keenan

Life was simpler when Pearl Keenan was growing up on her father's mink ranch near Teslin. In the days before the Alaska Highway, everything moved by dog team and snowshoes. Pearl got much of her early education on the land.

1911

Judas Creek

You can have a lot of fun with Yukon place names and learn some interesting history of the places along the way. Take Judas Creek. It’s a small stream that flows into Marsh Lake and is also the name…

1910

Michael Heney

Michael James Heney, the son of an Irish immigrant who farmed in the upper Ottawa Valley, was not cut out to be a farmer. A good thing for the Yukon. Otherwise, the White Pass and Yukon Railway would likely never…

1910

The Zust

It’s not often that a car you probably never heard of may well be the most famous automobile ever to hit the Yukon. Ever heard of a Zust? No! Me neither, until I read about the greatest automobile race in…

1900

Frances Muncaster: Pioneer Woman of Squaw Creek

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…