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Suspicious letter proves benign

A suspicious powder mailed to government offices wasn’t anthrax, or any other toxic substance.But that wasn’t confirmed until Wednesday…

A suspicious powder mailed to government offices wasn’t anthrax, or any other toxic substance.

But that wasn’t confirmed until Wednesday morning.

Tuesday afternoon around 2:08 p.m., Economic Development workers at 212 Main Street opened an envelope, which contained the substance.

They phoned police to report it.

Three government workers were in the office when the material was discovered, said police.

After arriving, RCMP shut the building down.

“As a precautionary measure, local businesses and offices operating at the 212 Main Street address were evacuated and the building’s ventilation system was shut down,” RCMP Sgt. Ross Milward told a news conference on Tuesday.

The white letter was addressed to no particular person and had a US postmark.

It was quarantined in the office until testing could be done to ensure public safety.

A team of specialists with the RCMP’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear unit flew up from Vancouver last night.

After a series of tests, it concluded the substance was benign and non-toxic.

POLICE

Body found in Lake Laberge

The body of an unidentified adult male was pulled from Lake Laberge on the weekend.

At about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, police received a call from a tourist canoeing on the lake that afternoon.

They found remains floating in shallow water on the lake’s east shore, across from Horse Creek, said RCMP Sgt. Ross Milward.

The body was easy to spot with a portion of the remains sticking up through the water, he said earlier this week.

The skin was white, which suggests the body had been in water for some time.

Foul play is not suspected, according to police.

The body has been sent to the coroner’s office to determine the cause of death.

Police are currently working to determine the man’s identity.

This was the second body pulled from Yukon waters in less than a week.

On May 31, 27-year-old Curtis Garrett Woods was found dead in the midst of old shipyard pilings in the Yukon River, at the foot of Wood Street.

While the autopsy results have not been released for Woods, foul play is not suspected in his death either. (CO)