The streets of Whitehorse are paved with stories...stories which go back long before the streets were paved. Those dusty, sometimes muddy, often frozen streets today yield nuggets about Lowe, Hoge, Jeckell, Taylor and Drury.
Last time, we walked the White…
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In the golden days of the 1950s, sports was king in Whitehorse. As with many towns, the hockey, basketball and softball leagues had some real superstar players supported by many journeymen. Such was George Krautschneider. George was a softball pitcher…
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Sheriff George Brimston asked the man with the noose around his neck if he had any last words. The reply, in Russian, was 'nyet'. "May God have mercy on your soul", said Brimston. The trap door was sprung. The first…
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The Whitehorse Copper Belt is - in some ways - cursed. The mineral belt, running for about 30 kilometers, is hidden just under the hills to the west of town. Copper deposits were noted here as early as 1897, by…
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John Zaccarelli was born in 1881 in Pravia, Italy. At a young age, his family moved to Vancouver Island, near Nanaimo. He was just 16 years old when he heard about the arrival of the ship the Excelsior in Seattle…
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In June 1920, Captain Douglas of the U.S. Air Force and Captain Leroyer of the Canadian Air Board arrived in Whitehorse. Both came with the authority of the US and Canadian governments to present a plan for a record-breaking airplane…
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Back in the 1920s, tourism was not a big ticket item in the Yukon. The territory was accessible only by the White Pass Railway, which carried some tourists during the summer, but it was mainly used for freight operations --…
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There was a time when the Yukon River was the Yukon’s highway and the river boats were the life blood of the economy. The boats delivered everything from soup to nuts and bolts from the railhead at Whitehorse to…
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You have to wonder why someone would start a car dealership in a country where roads were - at best - thinly disguised wagon trails. Just as curious is why someone would buy one. Both events happened in the Yukon…
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Many years ago, on a journey down the Yukon River in the company of Cam Cameron and Charlie Taylor, I heard first-hand many of the stories lived by these two unforgettable Yukoners. Both are gone now, but their memories…
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Times were tough in the Yukon just before the outbreak of World War II. The territory had become a backwater, out of sight and out of mind, especially by the Federal Government. In 1937 the feds gleefully agreed to allow…
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William Samuel McGee had no idea that, just because he had an account in the Bank of Commerce in Whitehorse, his name would make him world famous. The poet Robert Service, however, thought the name had a poetic ring…
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Two young American soldiers made northern history back in September of 1942. Driving a Dodge half-ton weapons carrier, they left Dawson Creek and headed northwest into the history books.
Corporal Ottawa Gronke was from Chicago Illinois. Private Robert Bowe hailed…
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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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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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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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