1987 Yukon Nuggets

Richard Finnie

When I first met him in the late 1960s, he liked to be called Klondike Dick. Richard Finnie had a soft spot for Dawson City where he was born in 1906. His father O.C.S. Finnie was a mining recorder at the time. His maternal grandfather Richard Roediger was founder of the Dawson Daily News in 1899.

But Klondike Dick didn’t spend that much time in the Klondike. The family moved to Ottawa in 1909 when his father became inspecting engineer for the Department of the Interior and later served as director of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon until his retirement in 1931.

From there Richard began his beat, which was the entire North. He carried both still and motion picture cameras. He served as an assistant radio operator under Captain Bernier on board the Canadian government ship “Arctic” first in 1925.

Then in 1928 he took the first official motion picture of the Arctic’s expedition. It was the first in a long line of professional films by Richard Finnie. One photo shows a comical Richard Finnie, dressed in only a bathing suit diving off the wooden ship into an open lead in the ice-covered waters, probably the first Polar Bear swim.

In 1939 he produced a film in Fort Rae entitled “Dogrib Treaty”. Then in 1942 he produced two films which have contributed a great deal to Northern history about the Canol pipeline and the Alaska Highway, both of which gained much acclaim.

His book “Canada Moves North” was described by Stefansson as "the best general book about northern Canada". Finnie retired as official historian and film producer for Bechtel Corporation in 1968 after 25 years covering in word and picture Bechtel’s international construction projects. During Finnie’s 25 years with the company he produced more than 60 films often being his own cameraman as well as writer, director and narrator. His subjects included the first major Athabasca oilsands development in Northern Alberta.

Klondike Dick Finnie was a fellow of the Artic Institute of North America and a honorary member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. Richard Sterling Finnie, a resident of Belvedere, California since 1951, died at his home on February 2, 1987, at the age of 80.

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.