1902 Yukon Nuggets

The Mast House

In the early days, it was known as the doctor's house. Not that doctors always lived in it, but back in 1902, a Dr. Nicholson built what has come to be known in later years as the Mast House.

Construction of the Mast house began in May of 1902, in what was then called the south end of town. It was a modest hip-roofed cottage, but much classier for its day than the framed tent shacks which dominated the Whitehorse residential areas. Among other things, the house survived the great Whitehorse Fire of 1905 which virtually wiped out the downtown core. At the turn of the century, it wasn't easy to find a doctor who would stay any length of time in Whitehorse. The little town was not much more than a stopping off place on the way to Dawson. So the Mast house became one of the perks of employment a doctor could expect. The other was that the first hospital in Whitehorse was at the corner of second and Elliot just a few doors down from the house.

The list of doctors who lived in the Mast house is long giving the impression that, even with these perks, none stayed very long. Laura Berton recalled living in Whitehorse when her son was born. She wasn't certain there would be a doctor around for the big event. And some of the ladies in town said she and her unborn son, Pierre, would never live.

Dr. Culbertson, a physician from Dawson City, moved to Whitehorse in 1920. The good doctor added a snazzy veranda to the house giving it a small but friendly look of a home on a southern plantation. The popular doctor left Whitehorse in November 1927 on a year's leave of absence. He was planning to do post-graduate work in Edinburgh and London. He sold his piano to the Ericksons, who kept it in the Regina Hotel for many years. But the doctor never made it back to Whitehorse. Culbertson died at sea on July 12, 1928.

Dr. Allan Duncan, the author of Medicine, Madams and Mounties, lived in the house from 1935 to 1937. In 1940, Dr. Burns Roth began his practice in Whitehorse and moved into the house. He was the Whitehorse physician throughout the war. When he was out of town there was no back-up except for the military. On at least one occasion in 1947, an army doctor was called in to perform an appendectomy on a local resident, a very young Les McLaughlin. Dr. Roth became minister of Health in the Saskatchewan government.

But the house wasn't always occupied by doctors. Magistrate Jock Kerr lived there for a while to be followed by Magistrate Andrew Gibson. In 1961, Ivor and Martha Mast bought the house which today bears his name. Mast had been posted in Mayo with the RCMP for many years. When he left the Mounties, he stayed on in the Yukon. The Masts moved out in 1985. Then the fun began as developers and heritage buffs battled to either keep or tear down the house. Finally the house was jacked up and moved to a new location on Wood Street, just like many an old house in Whitehorse had been moved from location to location over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.