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Yukon Nuggets

Results 49

1943

The Overland Telephone

It began in August of 1942, this little known, yet vital link in the Northwest Service Command's operations. A little more than a year later, overland telephone service was available from the southern United states and Canada all the way…

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1944

Chadburn Lake

Is there a more peaceful, easy feeling in midsummer than to sit on a drift log on the shores of Chadburn Lake near Whitehorse, and let the rest of the world go by? I don’t think so. Such a beauty…

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1944

Rusty Dow

Today, the Alaska Highway is considered the main street of the Yukon and Alaska. Easy to drive and quick to get there. It wasn't always so. Back in the early 40s, there was no highway. In the late 40s you…

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1945

Carnival Days in the ‘40s

The year was 1945. Six long years of war in Europe and the Pacific were coming to an end. Most of the military and civilian construction workers who had built the Alaska Highway and the Canol pipeline had left the…

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1945

Streets of Whitehorse - 1

Let's take a quick walk down some of the streets of Downtown Whitehorse. There are a lot of memories here and a lot of interesting people whose names appear on the street signs.

When I was a boy growing up…

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1945

THE CANOL PIPELINE & REFINERY

Most Canadians didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t exactly a top-secret military project, but the Americans were playing it pretty close to the vest. Hardly anyone in the Yukon knew about this massive construction project.

On June 4th,…

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1945

The British Yukon Navigation Company

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The British Yukon Navigation Company, a division of the White Pass and Yukon Route, operates busses from Whitehorse to Dawson Creek. The White Pass manages the train, the riverboats to Dawson City and Mayo, and the SS Tutshi

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1945

The Dalton Trail

The trail was known to the Chilkat Indians for centuries, and it was jealously guarded. So much so, that few gold-seekers used this route to the Klondike. That is until Jack Dalton came along.

The Chilkat called it the Grease…

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1945

The Yukon River

It was the last major river in North America to be explored. It is the fourth longest on the continent, and the fifth largest in terms of water flow. But this great river, as it was known in the Gwitchin…

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1946

Alaska Highway Turnover Ceremonies

April 3rd, 1946. It was plus 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0° Celsius on today’s thermometers. The afternoon sun shone brightly, and nearly 300 Whitehorse residents were there to witness history in the making. On the gravel road between the Two…

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1946

Camp Takhini

When the Canadian military took over the operation of the Northwest Highway System in 1946, a new era began in Whitehorse. The town became the headquarters for a substantial military presence in the Yukon. As many as two thousand Army…

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1946

Highway Lodges and Rancheria

When the American Army built the Alaska Highway temporary camps were set up at about 100 mile intervalls. These quickly built accommodations were not meant to survive for very long. After the war ended and the rest of the…

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1946

McCrae

Over the past one hundred years, McCrae has played many roles. It began in 1899 as a flagstop station on the White Pass railway. It was named for Colin McCrae, one of the company directors. The wagon road between

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1946

Streets of Whitehorse - 2

The streets of Whitehorse are paved with stories. Some from yesterday - others from yesteryear. No-one could know them all. But it's nice to be able to share the few I know with others who probably have their own special…

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1947

Alaska Highway Opens - 2

The bitter memory of World War II was fading by 1947. North Americans were optimistic. TIME magazine carried a special feature on a new land of adventure and promise. The far north was on everyone's mind.

The magazine reported that…

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1947

Hockey in the Hangar

When the last of the war-year hangars burned down in Whitehorse in 1999, the tragic event ended an era that fills the memory banks of those of us fortunate enough to watch - or play - hockey in the hangar.

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1947

Miles Canyon

For many, it's the most spectacular feature of the Yukon river. It is a canyon carved by thousands of centuries of swift-moving water. At one time, it was considered the most dangerous obstacle on the way to the Klondike…

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1947

Snag

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does much about it - so the old saying goes. Well, back in 1947, Gordon O'Toole did something about it - and his work put the Yukon in the weather record book.

That…

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1947

Streets of Whitehorse - 5

Our walk in the historic streets of downtown Whitehorse concludes as we tour the seven streets north of Strickland - a part of the city which came into being with expansion in the late '40s and early '50s.

The Governor…

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1947

The Indian Mission School

When I was a kid growing up in Whitehorse, I looked forward to summer vacation. Oh, what a lovely time - summer in the Yukon! But when the school year ended in June, I, along with a few classmates, first…

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1948

Ethel Berry

The Klondike was the realm of the male miner. But there were some resourceful women who headed to the gold-fields. One was Ethel Bush, who married Clarence Berry when he returned from his first trip to Yukon in the fall…

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