It was the first night of the SS Keno's historic final voyage from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The boat was caught in a strong current in the Yukon River and it was getting dark.
Biting, drinking and swearing, Polly the Parrot was worse behaved than some of the miners who frequented the bar at the Caribou Hotel in Carcross. Reportedly living to the age of 125, Polly had a long and unusual life.
Matt Willes lives in his van, and it's pretty crowded in there. He's got his bed, his clothes, his food and the spirits of about 50 deceased celebrities of all stripes, from Marilyn Monroe to Sitting Bull to Sam McGee.
Elsie Violet Britton, better known as 'Ma,' came to the Yukon in the early 1900s, and never left. Over her nearly 60 years in the territory she did not go Outside, even for a visit. Britton was born on July 4, 1879, in Mexico City.
Consummate businessman Thomas Cecil, better known as "T.C." Richards was rarely seen in public without a hat on his head.
It was March 1898, and the Close Brothers, a London financial firm, were looking to make their money off the stampede to the Klondike.
The search for wealth and riches was underway in the Yukon before the gold rush. Trappers, traders and miners settled 40 miles from Fort Reliance, where a river met the Yukon River. This river and the community become known as Forty Mile.
Anna DeGraf was one of the few adventurous women who went north during the Klondike Gold Rush to provide an invaluable service - sewing. At age 55, DeGraf crossed the Chilkoot Pass using a crutch because of a bum leg.
Eggs were $2.50 a dozen and potatoes sold for $1 a pound, but a box of oranges could fetch $75; and a single watermelon as much as $35. During the Klondike Gold Rush certain supplies such as fresh fruits were considered luxuries in Dawson City.
Picture this: Whitehorse, circa 1900. Dirt roads snake around a bustling tent town. A handful of storefronts - the Pioneer Hotel, Trading Co., Goods Bought and Sold - face onto Front Street.
Years ago, on his first trip to the Yukon, Brian Smart spotted a grizzly bear for the first time and was enthralled. The animal was happily munching flowers in a meadow about 100 metres away.
Living in the North required something the early Mounties themselves did not possess: Inborn knowledge of the land, the local game and the landscape, and how to travel long distances in all conditions of snow.
The idea for Lost in the Yukon, the first book from emerging local author Kyle Marchuk, began with a very simple mandate: to delight a four-year-old girl. For years, Marchuk had loved reading bedtime stories to his girlfriend's daughter, Lucia.
A man with a thick dark beard is sleeping soundly in his bed. So soundly, in fact, that not even the thunderous sound of snoring that comes from his mouth each time he opens it to take a breath can rouse him.
It was the autumn of 1902 and the Yukon was hungry for another gold strike. There was a find near Fairbanks, and suddenly Jujiro Wada found himself in the midst of the frenzy.
It was a crisp autumn day in 1899, and thousands of men, women and children lined the riverbank in Dawson City to witness a spectacle new to the northern town.
Up until the late-1800s, little was known about the western Canadian north in the rest of the world.
Big Alex McDonald, known as the Klondike King, was one of the lucky and shrewd few who came out of the Klondike with millions in gold in 1898. Just how many millions he had varies between seven and 27, depending on the source.
His Tagish name was Keish, meaning wolf, but to many Jim Mason became known as 'Skookum' because of his massive strength and his ability to carry a large quantity of supplies over the rough remote Yukon terrain.
Though he often referred to himself as a "moisture accelerator," Charles Mallory Hatfield is better known as a rainmaker.
