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Yukon Nuggets

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1992

Cassiar

The future of a mining town is usually guaranteed. It will become a ghost town. So it was with Cassiar, a company-owned asbestos mining town in Northern British Columbia. After 40 years of operation the mine closed in 1992.

Early…

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1991

Gold Dredge No. 4

When she was built in 1912 on Bonanza Creek, she entered the record books as the largest dredge in the world. For almost 50 years, this magnificent structure helped turn the Klondike valley upside down and produced millions in gold…

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1989

Elsa - Keno

Elsa, Keno, and Calumet are sometimes the forgotten communities in the grand scheme of Yukon history. They are, however, no less important to the history of the land. They are - or were - communities along the so-called Silver Trail.

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1982

Tantalus Coal Mine

When Lt. Frederick Schwatka, of the US army, made his famous journey of discovery down the Yukon River in 1883, he was baffled by the many bends in the river around what is now Carmacks.

He kept expecting…

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1980

Klondike Gold Dredges

It was the summer of 1966. It was the year they shutdown the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation – YCGC. This conglomerate had dredged the Klondike creeks near Dawson City since the turn of the century. Now those great squealing hotel-like…

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1978

Clinton Creek

The Clinton Creek asbestos mine, near the junction of the Yukon and Fortymile Rivers, was operated by the Cassiar Asbestos Corporation from 1967 until 1978. Asbestos was hauled from the mine site down the top of the world…

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1977

Al Kulan

Canada's centennial year, 1967, was an exciting time in the Yukon. There were all kinds of celebrations and projects. Unnamed mountains were being climbed. The Yukon River flotilla saw boats of every description heading from Whitehorse to Dawson. Most of…

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1968

Faro

Mining and prospecting have always been a gamble. When the gamble pays off, good things happen. Still, in the mining business, nothing lasts forever.

Since the 1880's, small amounts of gold had been taken from the creeks and sandbars along…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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 --…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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