Stolen Loot Or Hard-Earned Savings?
As a professional trail builder, Bill McLane spends a lot of time digging earth, moving rocks and finding treasure.
Klondike Gold Rush
Celebrating Yukon’s Unique Holiday
Celebrating Discovery Days in the Yukon goes back over 100 years. After the Klondike Gold Rush, the Yukon Order of Pioneers convinced the Yukon Territorial Council to celebrate Discovery Day, as a public holiday, in 1911.
125 years of gold
2021 marks 125 years since the discovery of gold in the Yukon. This year there is a series of new commemorative activities.
Silver Linings
Artists and Parks Canada heritage interpreters, Justin Apperley (left) and Miriam Behman, with their field camera Photography played a key role in the history and mythology of the Klondike Gold Rush. The photographer’s lens bore witness to the thrum and commotion of the stampede, along with the turmoil it wrought. The impacts of this era …
The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers
In these days of highways and 1000-year level flood dikes, it’s easy to forget that the best way to get to Dawson used to be by sternwheelers. While most of the stampeders made their way here in small boats and rafts in 1898, a sizeable number cruised to the fledgling town from St. Michael’s, Alaska, in riverboats and steamers and, once the White Pass chugged into Whitehorse, still more hopped on boats from there.
The ballad of “Buck” Choquette
Buck Choquette spent his last days and hours in Dawson telling Jack London true stories of his long pioneering life in the Northwest. Is it just coincidence, then, that the main character in his most successful novel, The Call of the Wild, is also named Buck?
Forgotten Town: Dyea, the town Alaska forgot
Two prominent American tourism publications hit the streets recently. Neither included much of a mention of Dyea, except to list the Dyea Campground in Skagway and note that it is the start of the Chilkoot Trail to the Klondike. Considering your roving RV reporter proclaimed from the top of the Golden Stairs last summer that …
In pursuit of the perfect shot
The Porcupine Caribou Herd is thought to have the longest mammal migration on the planet. The image I wanted to capture is hard to describe, but while doing research on the caribou, I saw videos of them in winter, migrating in long lines of thousands. It reminded me of images of the Klondike Gold Rush a hundred years ago, where there was a line of 400 men following a trail straight up the mountain.
The fastest lady in the Klondike Gold Rush
She was not only the first female river pilot on the Upper Yukon, she was also the fastest. No, her name wasn’t Klondike Kate, the Oregon Mare, Bombay Peggy or the (immortalized by Robert W. Service) “Lady that’s known as Lou.” She and her husband Albert were in the fabrication and construction business in Seattle. …
Yukon See It Here – Jonny Wilkie
Jonny Wilkie submitted a collection of different photos, including these with early 20th century relics. Classic Yukon cabin walls familiar to those with cabin fever [box] We invite you to share your photos of Yukon life. Email your high-resolution images with a description of what’s going on and what camera equipment you used to [email protected][/box]
Family fortune tied to the Klondike Gold Rush
U.S. President Donald Trump’s grandfather started the family fortune during the great Klondike Gold Rush. He never reached the Klondike Gold Fields; he was hundreds of miles short.
The white channel gravels
As the story goes, the early gold rush stampeders found all the creeks staked when they arrived. The Sourdoughs already there jokingly told the newcomers to go to the top of the hills to find gold.
Yukon See It Here: Jon Wilkie
The Thistle Creek Dredge in fog. This dredge was operated by Yukon Gold Placers and ran from 1949 to 1952.
Moosehide – shining a light across the North
The 2018 Moosehide Gathering in Dawson City was, once again, a smashing success. The local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in relocated to Moosehide, two miles north of Dawson City on the Yukon River, during the gold rush of 1898, to escape the insanity of thirty-thousand lousy, drunken gold-hungry stampeders. It is a refuge for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, and the …
The Yukon’s greatest love story
Yukon icons Otto and Kate Partridge lived in the beautiful southern lakes region of the territory.
Art meets nature and history
Miles Canyon holds a special place in the story of Whitehorse. Each summer, the Yukon Conservation Society invites Yukon artists to participate in a two-day workshop to create pieces inspired by this special place.
Inspired by Place
Kristin Link is a visual artist based in McCarthy, Alaska, who works in natural history and science art. She creates interpretive signs and educational material about nature.
From the California gold rush to the history of the Yukon
Josh Winkler combines traditional media with print media and sculpture. Reaching for the Sun is the title of his recent project. It references natural growth, but also the growth of humanity, the accumulation of products, and the fragility of the planet.
The Follies ‘Reborn’!
The Klondike Follies Cabaret shows will take place three times each week, beginning on June 26, 28 and 30.
Enjoying a ‘Skagway Quickie’
Enjoy one of the brothel tours with the lovely and knowledgeable Madam Toler Skagway holds its quirky charms with its Klondike-themed buildings and summer staff dressed similar to the time period. It’s no different as you step inside the Red Onion Saloon. The blood-red walls, wooden furniture and old-time music gives the feeling of stepping …
The Yukon Balladeer
Al Oster plays in Hougens in 1961 – PHOTOS: courtesy of Rolf Hougen This article uses information and content shared by Rolf Hougen from the HougenGroup.com website to commemorate Al Oster.Our Yukon heritage is a mix of different traditions and different eras, including First Nations history, gold rush stories, the construction of the Alaska Highway …
A new narrative on gold rush history
“To most people, the pack ice looked like a cold, endless wasteland that spread across one’s entire field of vision. But, if one watched it more carefully, one could see it come to life.” — excerpt from No Time to Bury Them by Mark C. Eddy On the surface of national history, the Yukon is …
Human migrations changed hunting
The discovery of Gold in the Klondike region in 1896, brought huge numbers of people to the Yukon. All these people had to be fed.
Stonecliff brings together a remarkable team of artists (Part 2 of 2)
The new musical drama Stonecliff tells the story of Michael J. Heney, the son of poor Irish immigrants in the Ottawa Valley who went on to build one of the world’s most spectacular railways – the White Pass and Yukon Route – to serve the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.
Hiking Miles Canyon to Canyon City: A Landscape with a Past
One of the most visited attractions in Whitehorse, the Miles Canyon Suspension Bridge, is a great launching point for interesting half-day hikes. Located about 10 minutes from downtown by road, the historic 95-year-old suspension bridge (which has been recently repaired) is connected to a well-established network of trails east of the Yukon River, in Chadburn …
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Canadian Red
Ever since I was a child I would see the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and think, “Wow! Our national police force is beyond cool!” Today, I still think that. The Mounties definitely know how put on a good horse show and parade. Located throughout every province and territory, the RCMP are there to “stand …
The Legacy of the Klondike Cancan
The cancan that began as an 1830s dance craze in Paris was a direct revolt against the rules imposed by men, society, press, clergy and narrow-minded citizens. From the beginning the cancan was a statement, and it became a symbolic statement through the various revolutions and movements from that point forward. As the great cancan …
The Cancan Arrives at the Klondike Gold Rush
On November 28, 1891, the New York Sun dedicated a full page to the cancan. Titled “Eccentric Paris Dance,” the article highlights Paris cancan stars of the day who describe intricate cancan dance moves. After the two decades of being attacked in the press by misogynist newspaper editors and pious moral reformers, the Sun article …
A Stitch in Time
Anna Taylor spent this winter stitching the stories of Dawson City women. In March, the Halifax-based textile artist completed a month-long residency at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture. There, her embroidery practice focused on Dawson’s relationship with prostitution during the gold rush, and on the lives of the individual women who traveled north …
Célébration de la francophonie yukonnaise
… et des célébrations Pour la 11ème édition, l’AFY et ses organismes partenaires, bien rôdés dans l’organisation de l’événement, ont voulu apporter de la nouveauté. Finis les longs discours de remerciements, ces derniers, raccourcis au maximum, laissent dorénavant place aux festivités : vendredi 12 mai, dès 16h15, une réelle chasse aux trésors, destinée aux familles, …
Stonecliff: White Pass and Beyond (Part 1/2)
When Michael Heney was just 14, he ran away from the family farm in the Ottawa Valley to work for an uncle who was building a portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) near Georgian Bay. His father quickly dragged him home to finish his education, but four years later he was off again, determined …
Can You Do the Cancan, Kate?
During the 1890s, the United States was a melting pot of entertainment – and vaudeville became the perfect vehicle to showcase this wealth of diversity. From New York to Victoria, B.C., vaudeville reigned supreme as the most popular entertainment in every city and many small towns. The key to vaudeville’s success was that it allowed …
High on Life
Between the years of 1991 and 2011 my husband and I used to pack up our son and drive to a mountain summit a few times every winter. They were once our favourite places to be: those white wide-open expanses. An active community of winter lovers is still going to the summits: skiers, snowboarders, snow …
Delightful Devilry: The Cancan Invades New York
Although the cancan made its North American debut with Offenbach’s opera Orpheus of the Underworld in 1861, it wasn’t until it appeared in the first American musical that the cancan became a true phenomenon in North America. In 1866 Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer imported a large group of Parisian dancers to perform the …
Christmas Eve Preparations in October
Organizers for the Christmas Eve Pageant Photo Shoot were on edge as October 2 dawned. Would there be a lot of snow on the Bonanza Road sites where the pictures were to be taken? Would it be too cold that day? Would there be enough sunlight to get good shots? It was, after all, a …
The Klondike Continues to Prepare for World Heritage Status
The nomination package has been prepared under the watchful eye of a local advisory committee, including representation from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, the City of Dawson, the Yukon Government, the Klondike Placer Miners Association and citizen reps from both Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Dawson community. There is also a project management team, and much of the actual …
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Dawson in a Fictional Sense
About the same time as I was reading Elle Wild’s very entertaining mystery novel, Strange Things Done, I happened to watch a discussion between best selling novelists Stephen King and Lee Child. Part of the discussion was about settings, and Child noted that he had set one of his novels in New York, a city …
Hepburn Tramway Historic Walk
“There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.” Paul Scott Mowrer Whitehorse resident Peter Long is an avid walker. He has explored many trails in and around Whitehorse. …
The dance craze with a kick!
In her book “DANCING” Lilly Grove describes the invention of the chahut which evolved into the cancan. “About 1830, a stage dancer called Mazarie played the part of a monkey in the Theatre de la Porte St. Martin. He invented for the occasion a figure dance which he called ‘chahut,’ which surpassed in its …
The Dead Man’s Gold Pan: Fiction
There is a crack at the base of the Yukon River, a portal to the the underworld. It lays just above Miles Canyon at the deepest part of the mighty Yukon River and has seen ice ages come and go; the birth of mountains, the carving of canyons, the rise of man, and the death …
The Trail of 98 Shows Another Side of Robert W. Service
Though best known for his 15 collections of verse (a term he preferred to poetry in reference to his own work) Robert Service also wrote novels. Between 1909 and 1927, he produced some genre material: adventure, mystery, science fiction and horror. The first of these was The Trail of 98: a Northland Romance, written in his …
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Stoking the Fire
Today, Sid and I are on the hunt for an unusual piece in his collection. As we sift through antiques after antiques, we come across a bellows. A bellows pumps air, and they are commonly known to be hand-held devices used to stoke small fires. However the bellows Sid possess is approximately a metre in …
The History of Jews During the Gold Rush
Once upon a time there were quite a few Jews in the Klondike. They arrived with the other gold rush stampeders. There were enough of them that they established their own graveyard. But the Jewish presence in Dawson City nearly vanished after the end of World War I. Dr. Brent Slobodin researched and wrote the …
Stories for Gold
Each year the Klondike Visitors Association works with the Writers’ Trust of Canada, Parks Canada, and the Dawson Community Library to put on the Authors on Eighth Walking Tour during the week before Discovery Days. Connected to that event is the annual Authors on Eighth Writing Contest, which challenges would-be authors to emulate the work …
Spotlight on Kids at Vaudeville Camp
School’s out for the summer, which means that summer camp is IN! An exciting new day camp is taking centre-stage this year in Whitehorse – specifically, it is taking the stage at the Frantic Follies Theatre, home to the Frantic Follies vaudeville revue. For almost 50 years, Frantic Follies has been delighting Whitehorse audiences with …
Stereoscopic Views
Looking through Sid’s antiquities I spot a familiar sight: stereoscopes. I had a pair of bright orange View Masters (a trademarked format of stereoscope) when I was a child in the 1990s with photos of Bugs Bunny. Sid’s stereoscopes are truly antique and rare. “These ones are from the late 1800s up to the 1910s,” …
Celebrating Jack London’s Legacy
One of the stops along Dawson’s 8th Avenue Writers’ Block is Jack London Square, home of a part of Jack London’s Klondike cabin and the Jack London Museum, in a setting modeled after a painting by Jim Robb. This year marks the 100th anniversary of London’s passing and the Klondike Visitors Association is marking the …
The CutOff Restaurant & Pub: Real food for real Yukoners
The CutOff Restaurant & Pub has really nice customers. On a Sunday night, looking at the crowd that has come in for the ever-changing weekly dinner special, you see a lot of long-time Yukoners. Real Yukoners who dress comfortably and laugh out loud. This is what you get when you open a new restaurant 20 …
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Surviving a Grizzly Attack and the Great War
Jim Christie was born in Scotland in 1867. He emigrated to Manitoba and then came to the Klondike in 1898. The short, wiry Scotsman took to living in the north like a duck to water. He prospected in the summers and trapped in the winters, learning everything about the isolated regions of the northland. He …
Joe Boyle: The Klondike King Who Became a War Hero
Joe Boyle came to the Klondike with the first wave of gold-seekers in the early summer of 1897, but soon left with a dream of becoming rich. He was successful in obtaining a large mining concession in the Klondike Valley from the federal government in 1909, and within a decade had gained control of one …
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Flat Feet and Brave Hearts: The Yukon at War
Canada was part of the British Empire, so when war was declared by Great Britain on August 4, 1914, Canada, too, joined the the conflict. There was a tremendous upswing of patriotic fervour. The vast American influx during of the Klondike gold rush had been largely replaced by a more settled British population, eager to …
Yukon Hidden History: Extraordinary Endurance
Lucile Hunter was an intrepid Yukon pioneer. Just 35 years after slavery was abolished in 1863 in the United States, she and her husband, Charles, joined the stampede to the Klondike from the US in 1897. As black Americans, they hoped to trade the cruelties of their homeland for a frontier that promised equality and …
A farewell from the 2015 Rendezvous Queen
As the year 2015 is coming to an end, so does my reign as the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Queen 2015. This article will be my last article in the Queen’s Corner. Last February I was interviewed for the CBC about the reasons why I signed up for the Rendezvous Queen Competition. Honestly, I did not …
The Chilkoot Pass: The Challenge Of My Summer
This summer my family and I hiked the Chilkoot Pass. When we kids learned we were actually going, the first response was “Why?” and “I don’t want to!” We got over it and realized that we were, in fact, going to go no matter what our opinion was. Eventually, when we were actually hiking, we …
A goldmine of history
I have an idea that would really put the Yukon on the world map: let’s build a True North Queen School. Tourists and Yukon students could spend few weeks at the Queen School, named after the wealth of history Rendezvous Queens study in order to be ambassadors to the Yukon. If we built a True …
Fun fiction from the Klondike
As the crew who came here to film an episode of the Canadian television series Murdoch Mysteries a few years ago told me, Dawson is a place that’s just a perfect backdrop for storytelling. The particular episode was a lot of fun to watch them film and then see it on TV later on. It …
Mine, All Mine!
The next time you travel north on the Alaska Highway between the Fish Lake Road and the Porter Creek Super A, ask yourself why the canyon there is called Rabbit Foot Canyon. Why not Anaconda? In 1899, the White Pass Railway was wondering whether it would be worthwhile extending its track all the way to …
The Paradise Beat
“Welcome to paradise,” Kevin Jack says. Thus begins my tour of a property that edges onto the swampy back of Marsh Lake. An old gold mining site, it is a refuge for old gold mining things: a tiny log cabin with grass growing out of the roof; metal drums sunken into the ground on a …
You are a Winner
One of the many remarks I got when I was selling queen raffle tickets during Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous (YSR) events was, “I have never won a prize”. My usual reply was, “You are already a winner by purchasing the raffle tickets, because you have made a contribution to the community”. My dear friends, by purchasing …
The Ultimate Guide to Yukon Sport
John Firth’s massive Yukon Sport: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, published in November 2014 by Sport Yukon, is a heavy book. It must weigh 14 pounds. If you’re brain isn’t strong enough to read all of it, mine wasn’t, you can throw out your old barbells and dumbbells and incorporate it into a new fitness program. Little …
Dreams and Hopes
The great Klondike Gold Rush brought people to the Yukon in the pursuit of their dreams and hopes. To this day, many individuals continue to come to the Yukon like their predecessors over a hundred years ago. I’m the same; I am here to pursue my dream job and hope for a thriving community. It …
World Heritage Planning Gets a Big Boost
The Yukon Government (YG) finally decided to sign on in a substantive way to the push for UNESCO World Heritage Status for the site designated Tr’ondëk/ Klondike. The press release hasn’t been issued yet as I write these words, but I know, because I was one of the people who posed for the group photo …
St. Paul’s Tries To Get Warmer
November and most of December were mild in the Klondike this winter. Wondrously, it only took two-and-a-half days to warm up St. Paul’s Anglican Church enough to have a comfortable ecumenical Christmas Eve pageant. The building is primarily heated by a large, hungry wood stove. After the chill is off, and the temperature is up to …
Rocking the Klondike
116th Brier, an event that started in the Klondike Gold Rush and is considered the Yukon’s oldest continuously running event.
Tracking down grandmother by land and water
Nadia White, great-granddaughter of Elmer (Stroller) and Alice Josephine (Josie) Keys White is on a quest to find out all she can about the life of her great- grandmother. Klondike newsman Stroller White is a fairly well known historical figure, having worked at the Skagway News during Soapy Smith’s heyday. He moved on to Dawson …
The Hollywood Treatment
In Dawson we are of two minds regarding the Discovery Channel’s Klondike mini-series — that six hour reimagining of history, geography and culture that aired this winter. We celebrate six hours of free advertising that will probably draw some visitors to our town, and we lament that it had so little to do with anything …
Dredges Kept the Klondike Alive
Despite iconic images of a solitary miner with a pan or a group of men drifting into a hillside, the dredges of the corporate-mining-era are the main reason that Dawson outlasted the usual boom-and-bust cycle common to gold rush towns.
The Klondike Echoes Down through the Literary Years
The Klondike has been the inspiration for a great deal of fiction since the Gold Rush, beginning with Jack London, who came with the Stampeders and left with a mother-lode of inspiration that would make him the wealthiest name-brand author of his generation. A decade later, the same inspiration seized a quasi-hobo and reluctant bank …
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World of Words: History as a Smörgåsbord
“Think of our history as a smörgåsbord, upon which there is more than you can possibly eat,” says Michael Gates, author of the new book, History Hunting in the Yukon, published by Harbour Publishing. As Gates’ popular History Hunters column in the Yukon News shows, he gets personal about Yukon history: “I have always delighted …
They Keep Coming Back
The departure of yet another Berton House writer, Jeanne Randolph, brought to my mind the number of writers in residence who have come and gone – and come again over the last few years. This happens to quite a few people other than writers, and is referred to locally as the Dawson Boomerang Effect. Randolph …
Klondike Catwalk
In a show of pre-season energy akin to athletes’ pre-game excitement, Parks Canada interpreters Carrie Docken and Carly Sims gallantly put on their copies of 100-year-old fashion and posed for What’s Up Yukon last week in Dawson City. Sims’ tea dress is a replica of the styles Martha Black and other Klondike pioneering women, of …
Looking Back: 3,000 Horses
One of the interesting names on the map in Yukon history is Dead Horse Gulch. It’s a name that has been well-earned. During the height of the Gold Rush, from 1897-1898, there were thousands of horses that joined the thousands of people making the epic trek from the south up to the Klondike. A North-West …
Looking Back: The woodcutter’s tale
When James Domville Richards joined the Klondike Gold Rush, the Yukon became blessed with one of its most endearing characters. The quiet, reserved man – who became known as Buzzsaw Jimmy – encountered disaster time and time again. Working as a woodcutter for over 50 years, he survived a train derailment, acquired over a metre …
Memories of Life in Dawson
Publishing timelines sometimes just don’t mesh with reality. Ten days ago I could have written three of these advance-notice style columns about the crowded schedule we’re having this week (November 7 to 11). However, the theme of this column, whenever possible, is to look into the future and there’s not a lot going on 10 …
Strange Things on Film
Braden Brickner’s first job was dishing out popcorn at the Yukon Cinema. Now, the 19-year-old Vanier Catholic Secondary School grad is about to produce his first indie film. With a marquee-filling title lifted straight from the most famous poem Robert Service ever penned, it’s an unusual take on the discovery of gold in the Klondike. …
Looking Back: Hercules of the North
Quick! Off the top of your head, how many world-famous geologists can you name? None? We can fix that. There is at least one you should know more about, and of course he has a Yukon connection. Joseph Burr Tyrrell arrived in Dawson City in 1898. The man who became known as the “Dean of …
Looking Back: Fickle Fortune
It was inevitable, considering the sheer volume and variety of people who joined the Klondike Gold Rush, that a few people with connections to the occult made it up to Dawson City—psychics were in the crowd. On February 2, 1901, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) visited the locales of four practising fortunetellers to alert them …
Looking Back: When Johnny met Kate
On Christmas Eve, 1900, the Monte Carlo Saloon in Dawson City was the place to be. Men from all over the world crowded the dancehall, and an air of manic festivity pervaded. At the centre of it all was dancehall girl Kathleen Rockwell, “Klondike Kate.” Kate was on fire that night, performing her famous “Flame …
Journeys Then & Now
Dalton’s Gold Rush Trail is a story of journeys; the 10-year journey of Jack Dalton to blaze a trail to the Klondike gold fields, and the 40-year journey of author Michael Gates to retrace those steps in southwest Yukon. Like the pioneer, “Michael shares Dalton’s own determination and concise, clear thinking,” said local author Ellen …
Beefer Madness
The first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Klondike might not be cattle. But the men who moil for gold need to eat just like the rest of us, and an appetite for beef only grows the longer the carnivorous among us are away from it. The result for the Yukon …
