In the tiny clapboard hospital in downtown Whitehorse, on July 12, 1920, a future Canadian icon came into the world. His mother, the now-famous Yukon school teacher, Laura Berton, delivered a healthy eight-pound boy and named him Pierre.
The Ryder family began their Yukon saga in 1900 when Roland Ryder left his home in Chilliwack, B.C. and headed for Dawson City, where he hoped to make his fortune since he had a wife and eleven children to support…