I took the photograph above in 1967. It shows my friend Steven Frost, who was a dog musher from Old Crow, toasting the crowd.
He is behind the bar of the old Regina Hotel cocktail lounge (he is facing customers in the bar). On the bar mirror in the background the lettering says, “Dog Mushers Welcome.”
I used to decorate all the bar mirrors and Main Street windows at Rendezvous in those days.
In the Rendezvous of those days, we had dog mushers from many areas of the Yukon representing their villages, like Andy Smith, Sam Johnson and Gordon Smarch, of Teslin; Wilfred Charlie, of Carmacks; Babe Southwick and Alex Van Bibber, of Champagne; Steven Frost, Paul Ben Kassi, Stanley Njootli and Peter Benjamin of Old Crow, and Alex Joe, of Pelly.
I was talking to Jerry Geddes the other day about the Rendezvous of the past and he mentioned some of the interesting and humorous things, like Frank Sidney, the chief of Teslin back in those days, who used to come to the Rendezvous in Whitehorse with an old pickup with a tent pitched in the back, and he also said Gordon Smarch called his lead dog “Chum.”
By the way, Geddes won the flour-packing contest three years in a row.
In other years, some champion packers were: Uwe Meyer, Norman James, Danny Jackson, Jim McCormick.
In another column, I hope to mention some of our beautiful Rendezvous Queens of the past.
Also, I would like to tell about some of our really strong female flour packers. They are really impressive.
Anyone with information about this subject, please write Jim Robb: The Colourful Five Per Cent Scrapbook—Can You Identify? c/o the Yukon News, 211 Wood Street, Whitehorse, Yukon,
Y1A 2E4, or e-mail
through the News website,
www.yukon-news.com.