On January 3rd, 1959, Alaska officially became the 49th state in the Union. Like the continuing quest for Yukon autonomy, the road to Alaskan statehood had been long and winding. The United States bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867…
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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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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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Photographs of early Bennett City, Whitehorse and Dawson show street scenes of gaudy store fronts with hand-painted advertising at its very best. The signs, extolling the virtues of diverse business establishments, weren’t like the neon sixties or the plastic electric…
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At the beginning of World War Two, the importance of Whitehorse as a transportation hub grew when a fully operational airport was built as part of the Northwest Staging Route. The Canadian and American military made their headquarters in Whitehorse,…
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The skies over Whitehorse were filled with planes and parachutes.The streets were swarming with combat-ready soldiers.The Alaska Highway was a battle-ground.
The frigid winter showed no sign of abating, but the heat was on around the world. Thousands of Canadian…
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The first city council to serve Whitehorse had its work cut out. There was no city hall, hardly any money in the budget….
On August 4th, 1950, Whitehorse elected its first mayor and four aldermen. Mayor Gordon Armstrong presided over…
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I didn't really know the elderly gentleman who spent his days in the back room of the little Yukon Electrical clapboard office on Main Street, except that my school chum, Willard, enjoyed stopping there to say hello. To me, he…
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Today, the SS Keno sits high and dry near Front Street overlooking the Yukon river in Dawson.
She was built in Whitehorse in 1922, this little jewel in the crown of Yukon riverboats. The SS Keno was built to…
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It was a day for celebration in Whitehorse back in March of 1951. But for the people of Dawson City, it was a black day not soon to be forgotten.
The news came by way of a telegram from Yukon…
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If there ever was a cowboy town in the Yukon, Champagne was it. After all, the community had horses, fences, log buildings like the American west had in the movies - and most importantly - a rodeo.
In the 1950s,…
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It's not often you get to meet a legendary character who was cremated and lived to tell the tale, but one day, years ago in Whitehorse, I did.
When Sam McGee came to the Yukon around 1898, he had no…
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The Yukon's political evolution has always been closely tied to the territory's population growth or decline, which, until recent times, has been tied to the state of the mining industry.
When the Yukon became a territory in 1898, the best…
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It wasn't the Yukon's first pipeline. The Canol line had been built in 1942, and included a line from Whitehorse to Skagway.
The eight-inch pipe-line, built in 1954 from Haines to Fairbanks, was a symbol, not of WWII, but of…
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He was as colourful as the characters he wrote about.
Harry J. Boyle was the editor and owner of the Whitehorse Star from 1954 to 1963. The office was in a shack on Main Street, but the editorial office…
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The land is still here - listed as Group 2 in lot 243 - a nineteen-acre plot on the west bank of the Yukon River about three miles upstream from Dawson City. It is long way from Chicago, Illinois where…
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