1996 Yukon Nuggets

Les McLaughlin

Born in Valleyview, Alberta, Les McLaughlin was just three years old when he arrived in Whitehorse. His youth included playing midget, juvenile for the Hougens team, and senior hockey, along with volunteering at the military-run radio station CFWH in the late Fifties. It was just the beginning of a long broadcasting career.

Les has spent countless hours helping to preserve the history of the Yukon with his recordings of special people and events over many years for CBC Radio.

More than two hundred hours of audio selections are housed in the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and the Yukon Archives in Whitehorse.

The founding producer of the True North Concert series broadcast across Canada, Les also produced a unique and innovative series of broadcast recordings featuring Northern musical talent from across the north. The series includes over one thousand musical selections.

Another musical offering is "The Songs of Robert Service", a CD featuring ten poems by the famous poet, set to contemporary music.

Robert Service was the subject again in one of a series of hour-long recordings created for the Yukon tourist market, including "Colourful Characters of the Klondike", "North to Alaska on the Trail of ’42," "The Northwest Mounted Police in the Klondike;" and "The Robert Service Story."

Les was also the author of "High Flyers", the story of the improbable quest for Olympic gold in 1948 by the RCAF Flyers hockey team, which ran in the national publication AirForce Magazine and in the Globe and Mail.

In 1996, he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Yukon Historical and Museums Association, who wrote that it was "to recognize the contribution of Les McLaughlin to the preservation of the Yukon’s heritage".

With his efforts to record and highlight the history of the North, Les McLaughlin himself has left his own mark in the more recent history of Whitehorse.

You may know him best as the author and host of CKRW’s "Yukon Nuggets".

 

 

 

Les McLaughlin passed away on January 08, 2011.

 

 

Friends of Les McLaughlin have established a "Les McLaughlin Fund" in his honour to be administered by the Yukon Foundation. The family directed that the annual proceeds of the fund be used to assist students who wish to pursue a career in journalism or history. Contributions can be made to "The Yukon Foundation" P.O. Box 31622, Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 6L2 or by dropping it off at the CKRW Studios, 4th & Elliott St.

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Ron McFadyen.