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Yukon Archives Family

Porter family

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  • Family

Dennis Porter lived on the Mayo Road. No other biographical information is available.

Profeit family

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The Profeit family lived in Mayo and Whitehorse. Alex Profeit was the first school teacher in Mayo. He came to the Yukon from Ontario in 1910 or 1911 and taught in Mayo from 1913 to 1915. Alex married Ellen Turgeon in Mayo. They had 10 children: Ella (Profeit) Rear, Isabel (Profeit) Tornai (deceased), Maisie (Profeit) Morberg, Bessie (Profeit) Freisen, Dorothy (Profeit) Genier, Charlie (deceased), James (deceased), Lawrence (deceased) and Mary (deceased).

Ryder family

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  • Family

Roland Ryder (d. 1923) came to the Yukon from the Hope-Chilliwack area of British Columbia in 1900. His 16-year-old son George (1893?-1950), came up around 1909 to help run the draying, woodcutting and water-delivery business his father had established. George fought overseas in the First World War and returned to the Yukon. On November 15, 1919 he married Edith (1895-1980) a woman he had met through his sister Agnes. George and Edith settled in Whitehorse and had five children, Lloyd (1922-2009), Audrey (1924-1996), Harold (born and died 1928), Howard (b. 1931) and Gordon (b. 1936). The Ryder family operated the majority of the wood camps in the Whitehorse area until 1965. The sternwheelers on the Yukon River used wood as their chief fuel source and residential houses used wood for heating and cooking. The Ryders had 8 major locations in a 30-mile radius of Whitehorse. In 1934 Lloyd joined his father in the wood cutting business and in the mid-1950s Howard and Gordon joined the business. By the late 1940s Lloyd had also established Ryder Fuel and his brother Howard was delivering the home-heating oil. Gordon attended high school in Regina and returned home after graduating in the early 1950s. The city of Whitehorse was incorporated June 16, 1950 and a mayor and four-member council, including George Ryder, were elected. He died unexpectedly four months later at the age of 57. Edith Ryder was very good with numbers and had worked with her husband, George, for over thirty years. She owned property on Jarvis Street and in the spring of 1960 she and Gordon began construction of the Stratford Motel. The Ryders ran the hotel until 1991 when it was sold. In the mid-1960s Gordon started Builders Supplyland which he was still operating in 1999. Lloyd sold his fuel-oil business in 1965 and embarked on a thirty-year career as a bush pilot. Lloyd died in Whitehorse in December 2009. His wife Marny is now retired from a career in the health care field which included years as a community health nurse, a nursing instructor for Yukon College's Nursing Assistants Program and a staff development consultant in Yukon government's Public Service Commission.

Tugwell family

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Thomas Tugwell Sr., born in 1840, operated a pub and later a hotel in Esquimalt, B.C. He joined the Klondike Gold Rush stampede, prospected briefly along the White Pass on the Yukon/B.C. border, and in 1897 opened a roadhouse at Log Cabin, B.C. with his son, Thomas Tugwell Jr. Thomas Sr. retired to Victoria, B.C. and died there in 1907. Thomas Tugwell Jr., 1878-1958, co-managed the roadhouse and also delivered the Royal Mail between Log Cabin and Atlin, B.C. He was appointed postmaster of Log Cabin in 1908. He and wife Lilly Tugwell, 1892-1971, were later residents of Atlin. Thomas Jr. died in Ucluelet, B.C. in 1958.

Van Bibber family

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Ira Van Bibber was born in West Virginia in 1877. He and his brother Theodore came to the Yukon in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. They were large men who immediately got jobs carrying supplies over the Chilkoot Pass. After saving enough money for grubstakes, the brothers went to Dawson City, but found all the land was staked and jobs were scarce. Theodore continued on to Alaska, where his wife and daughter joined him, but Ira stayed in the Yukon, settling in the area around Fort Selkirk. He trapped in the winter and explored the waterways in the summer. In the summer of 1907, Ira canoed to Fort Selkirk for supplies and there met Eliza, whom he married. Together they roamed the land, trapping and living off the land. They travelled around the Liard Hotsprings and then on to the Nahanni Valley, giving birth to their first three children in this time. In 1914, Eliza and Ira built a log home at Mica Creek, near what is now Pelly Crossing. They lived off the land, gardening, fishing, hunting and trapping, to provide for their large family. Ira also ran a big game guiding business. Ira died in 1965 and Eliza died in 1983.

Watson family

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  • Family

Matthew Watson and his son Matthew, 13, travelled from Tacoma, Washington to Dawson City, Yukon in early 1897. They returned to Dyea, Alaska in the fall. His wife, Grace, arrived in Dyea with their three other small children, Grace, Bill and Bruce on February 2, 1898. The Watson family, along with a horse and 2 dogs, travelled over the Chilkoot Pass in March 1899, arriving in Atlin, B.C. in April. They returned to Skagway in the fall of 1899, moved to Bennett by train in early 1900 and eventually settled in Whitehorse.

Watt family

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Norman Allen Watt and Garnett Cunning Watt were brothers who operated as businessmen in Dawson City, Yukon, ca. 1900-1919. Some of their enterprises include the Aylmer Mining Co., various mining claims, and a proposed insurance agency. Norman Watt also sat on the Territorial Council from 1916-1917. Norman Watt was born ca. 1880 and died in 1946. After prospecting in Dawson City he joined the Canadian Army, then moved to Victoria ca. 1919 as Premier T.D. Pattullo's private secretary. In 1925 he moved to Prince George and served as Government Agent. In 1919 Norman married Ann Dorothea Acheson in Ottawa. They had three daughters Joan (Anderson), Norma, and Lydia. Ann died in 1933.

Wilkinson family

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  • Family

Jared Cecil Wilkinson was born in Richfield, Utah on July 30, 1886. Lura Thompson was born in Amery, Wisconsin on July 4, 1882. The two met in Washington state where J.C. was working with horse teams and they were married in the town of Redmond in 1909. In 1914 they moved to Peace River Crossing where there first son, William Jared, was born on November 13, 1914. Shortly thereafter the family decided to move back to Washington and settled in the Wenatchee Valley. Their daughter Ethel Lougene was born on March 17, 1917. Lura Thompson's brother Bill had come to the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. He worked for a short time as a pilot on the Yukon River, guiding boats through Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids. After that he moved to Fort Selkirk and began prospecting and mining on the nearby Selwyn River. Bill Thompson invited the Wilkinsons to join him and they arrived in Fort Selkirk in 1917. Not finding much gold on the Selwyn River, the family settled at Fort Selkirk where J.C. trapped in the Winter and did odd jobs during the Summer. The Wilkinsons' second son, Byron Edwin (Eddie), was born in Fort Selkirk on March 19, 1919. In 1927, the family moved to Plateau Mountain near the MacMillan River, just below Russell Creek, where Jared continued to be a trapper. On June 14, 1940, the family left the MacMillan River for the Pelly Farm, located six miles west of Fort Selkirk along the Pelly River. There, they pursued a life of trapping, hunting, farming, and guiding until 1954 when they sold the farm and moved to Pelly Crossing, where they lived at the site of the old Pelly Roadhouse. In 1956 Ethel met Andy Porterfield, whom she was to marry a few years later. In 1957 Jared ran boats for the topographical survey crews. In 1958 the family left the Yukon to live in Edgewood, British Columbia. From 1962-1964 Jared worked as a logger and farm hand in B.C. In 1964 Jared and Eddie returned to the Yukon and to the Pelly Crossing area where they farmed, hunted, and trapped. J.C. and Lura returned to the Yukon in 1967 and settled with their sons near Pelly Crossing. Ethel remained in B.C. for the rest of her life, only returning to the Yukon for a holiday. Lura died in 1970 and J.C. died around 1976. In 1976 Jared and Edwin moved to Lansing, an abandoned settlement near the confluence of the Stewart and MacMillan Rivers. Edwin was killed by a bear at Lansing in 1977, Jared died in a car accident in Whitehorse in 1980, and Ethel died in B.C. in 1985.

Witschl family

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Wolfgang Witschl (1923-1988) and his wife, Gabriele (1916-2001) and their five year old son Wolfgang Jr. emigrated from Austria to Canada in 1952 and settled in Edmonton, Alberta. Their daughter Ursula was born that same year. Wolfgang and Gabriele enjoyed travelling and nature and he took many photographs and films during their trips. Upon retirement Wolf hoped to show his films on Canada at venues in Europe and vice versa. In the 1970s the couple established WOGA Foto and Film under which these films would be produced. This dream was never fully realized as a stroke disabled Wolf at the age of 63 and he passed away on March 24, 1988. Gabriele passed away September 10, 2001 at the age of 85.

Zimmerlee family

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Art Zimmerlee married Lil Horsefall. They had three children: Meda, James (Jody) and Edith. The family lived at Russell Post on the MacMillan River in the winter, where Art trapped, traded furs and operated the Russell Post. In the summer they lived at Fort Selkirk where Art was a partner in the Schofield and Zimmerlee Store. The family moved to Vancouver in 1939. Meda (Zimmerlee) Alcock attended grade school at the old Lambert Street School in Whitehorse. She lived with the Erickson family at the Regina Hotel until the Zimmerlee family moved to BC. She was a member of the Vancovuer Yukoner's Association, and was known for making teddy bears out of old fur coats for door prizes at the Yukoner's Banquet. She passed away in October 2008.