2009 Yukon Nuggets

Lloyd Ryder - 2

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 back home. When he reached Whitehorse, Roland had travelled far enough and so he stayed. He began a water delivery service in the town of three hundred people.

His wife decided to stay in Chilliwack, but three of Roland’s boys followed him. In 1923, his son George carried on with the business, adding stove wood to the water delivery business. Through the years, George was an undertaker, fire chief, and on the city of Whitehorse’s first elected city council.

George married his wife Edith in 1919 and had three sons, Lloyd, Gordon and Howard, and a daughter, Audrey. The eldest, Lloyd, who was born in 1922, helped his father with the delivery services. Lloyd recalled feeding the family’s horses every morning where they were pastured near Main Street.

After graduating from high school, he trained as an aviation mechanic in Vancouver. In the early 1940s, he worked for White Pass Airways and took part in surveying the Aishihik road. He spent a brief period with the Canadian military in Holland, at the end of WWII.

When his father George died unexpectedly at age 59, Lloyd took over the fuel delivery business and ran it until it was sold to Les Murdoch in 1965.

Meanwhile, Lloyd had retained his keen interest in aviation which he had developed as a teenager. He began flying commercially in 1965 and continued in this career until he retired in 1994 at age 72. When Lloyd and several partners bought out Yukon Airways, he began flying full-time under the new company called Great Northern Airways. When this company folded in 1971, he spent the bulk of his flying career with Elvin’s Equipment in Whitehorse.

In 1969, on one of his many medivac trips, Lloyd met a young nurse from Ontario, Marny Prentice, and they were married later that year. They had two children, John, born in 1971, and Jennifer, born in 1974.

The family loved the outdoors, and spent as much time as possible, camping out at the various Yukon lakes in their trailer and at their beloved cabin at McClintock Bay.

In 1995, Lloyd and Marny were honoured as Mr. and Mrs. Yukon. Lloyd was also active as a community volunteer for more than sixty years. He devoted countless hours to the Whitehorse Lions Club, CPR Yukon, Yukon Order of Pioneers, Yukon Transportation Museum, and the Boy Scouts of Canada. He received the Whitehorse Volunteer of the Year award in 2001.

Lloyd was a pioneer member of the Canadian Owner’s and Pilot’s Association and an inaugural member of the Yukon Flying Club. He was inducted into the Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame in 1997 and in 2007, he was honored with the presentation of the Order of Polaris Award.

Lloyd Ryder passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, at his home in Whitehorse on December 7, 2009, at the age of 87.

 

 

 

 

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.