Al Oster has written a lot of story songs about the Yukon. One that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves is about the Ghost ship of the Arctic. It was called the SS Baychimo.
Most of the photographers who took the Klondike challenge of 1898 travelled all the way to Dawson City. When the rush was over, most left the land of gold forever. Ephraim Hamacher did neither.
You wouldn’t think the Yukon river-boat days are gone long enough to attract the attention of archeologists. Nevertheless, a British Columbia archaeologist, sponsored by the Institute of nautical archeology at Texas A & M University, is conducting a…
Once in the mid 70’s I took a boat trip on the Yukon River with G.I. Cameron. The former mountie who had been stationed for many years at Fort Selkirk was a wealth of knowledge about the…
The sternwheeler, the Gleaner, a three decked boat more than one hundred feet long, could carry 150 passengers and a lot of freight. Yet the river boat never ran the Yukon River. Instead, she operated in the Yukon southern…
It was the most powerful aircraft in Canada flying on floats. The visionary pilot at the controls was man who would make trans - Pacific flying commonplace in years to come. But on July 5, 1937, he was flying his…
Times were tough in the Yukon just before the outbreak of World War II. The territory had become a backwater, out of sight and out of mind, especially by the Federal Government. In 1937 the feds gleefully agreed to allow…