Menu

Yukon Nuggets

Results 29

1869

William Puckett

There’s a neat well-maintained pathway with, of all things, stairs. It leads from Alexander Street to the airport. But when I was a kid in the fifties, the trail to the airport via Puckett’s Gulch hadn’t changed much since…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1884

Stewart River

Many places in the Yukon are named for people who worked for the Hudson Bay Company. And most of it is due to the explorations of Robert Campbell, who named one of the most important rivers in the Yukon after…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1886

First Yukon gold rush

It wasn't much by Klondike standards, but the first gold rush in the Yukon set the stage for the stunning events which would soon follow.

In the early 1880s, miners and prospectors began filtering into the Yukon. They were testing…

Read more

00:0000:00

1896

Alec Berry

When I knew him back in the 1960s, he was a soft-spoken elderly gentleman who usually occupied a special place at Cal Miller's Capitol Hotel bar. Back then, that's where anyone who was anyone in the mining industry gathered.…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1898

Copper Belt - Whitehorse

The original Copper King mine, just off the Fish Lake road, is the site of more than one mining tragedy. Two mountains in the Whitehorse area are named for men connected to the site in life and in death.

The…

Read more

+2

1899

Stage coach robbery

Where there is gold, there are bunco artists, swindlers and just plain foolish felons out to make a quick buck. It was no different during the California or Klondike gold rushes. Nor, it seems, was the largely forgotten rush to…

Read more

00:0000:00

1900

Frances Muncaster: Pioneer Woman of Squaw Creek

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…

Read more

00:0000:00

1900

H.E. Porter

The community of Porter Creek has grown by leaps and bounds since the mid-sixties when the city of Whitehorse put lots for sale in the new subdivision at $300 for a 200 by 200-foot building lot. Times have certainly changed.…

Read more

00:0000:00

1900

Taku Tramline

It’s hard to imagine a railway, anywhere in the world, that was shorter than the one that ran between Graham Inlet on Taku Arm and Atlin Lake. It was just two and half miles long, and it was called the…

Read more

00:0000:00

1902

John McIntyre

John McIntyre of Pembroke, Ontario sailed north on an ocean-going vessel from San Francisco to Saint Michael, Alaska in 1895. From there, he prospected along the Yukon river system, finally ending up in Circle, Alaska in 1897. By 1898,…

Read more

00:0000:00

1906

The Battle of the Rainmakers

The miners of the Klondike raised their eyes to the cloudless sky, waiting for a miracle. It was July, nineteen oh six (1906), and the region hadn’t seen rain in a month. In fact, there hadn’t been enough rain for…

Read more

00:0000:00

1917

Pueblo Mine disaster

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…

Read more

00:0000:00

1922

Robert Lowe Bridge

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 --…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1928

John Conrad

In the early 1900s, John Conrad, an American financier, took a bold million dollar move and consolidated gold and silver claims on Montana Mountain, which overlooks Carcross and Windy Arm. With the value of silver rising, development of the…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1936

The Gleaner

The sternwheeler, the Gleaner, a three decked boat more than one hundred feet long, could carry 150 passengers and a lot of freight. Yet the river boat never ran the Yukon River. Instead, she operated in the Yukon southern…

Read more

00:0000:00

1940

The Real Sam McGee

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…

Read more

1946

McCrae

Over the past one hundred years, McCrae has played many roles. It began in 1899 as a flagstop station on the White Pass railway. It was named for Colin McCrae, one of the company directors. The wagon road between

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1949

Atlin, B.C.

When gold was discovered in the Atlin region, everyone naturally assumed that it was part of the Yukon.  It wasn’t.  But even today, Atlin is more closely associated with the Yukon than its real home, British Columbia.

In 1898, prospectors…

Read more

00:0000:00

1959

Whitehorse - Mayo Road

Mining has been a crucial element in Yukon development since the gold rush. In the mid-1940s, mining men were reviewing the old Treadwell Yukon’s silver workings on Galena Hill near Mayo. What geologists found led to the opening of…

Read more

+2

1965

Engineer Mine

Engineer mine was located 42 kilometres west of Atlin, British Columbia, along the shores at the south end of the Taku Arm. In a region of wilderness beauty, the mine has a history of misfortune and curses.

In July 1899,…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1966

Bear Creek

It was the largest industrial complex the Yukon had ever seen. This operation, near the mouth of a little Klondike Valley Creek, was home base for one of the world's richest gold mining companies.

When the townsite was built in…

Read more

00:0000:00