Volume 24-25, 1976-7 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL. }O(V }b. 3 TTIE ARCTIC CIRCTJISR 58SIERN WHffiT;ER.S ON THE YIJKONLETTER TO TTIE EDITORl1tris paragraph (in lrAarctr L977, p.15) needs guite a lot of editing and correctionof errors. Thre first lines are OK except soIIE readers rnight thirk thatWhitelrorse was on Tes1in lake, a body of water that. npst of ttp sternwheelerscor:ld not reach because the Ttes1in, except for a ferw days at high r^rater wastoo shallovs for tlrsn to navigate. Vilhitehorse is just belovr the forner siteof the WLritehorse Rapid, the head of navigation upstrean on tlre Yr:kon River.Scne steanrers did go down ttrror-rgh Mj-les Carryon and tlre Rapid to get to belovrthese obstacles whrere ttrey had to stay.Ttre dcnrn strean voyage took 36 hor:rs or IIDre including one or two hor:rs to pickup ranod, and, thre r4>strean voyage for,rr to five days or npre when push-ing abarge and tlre water was lcnl in thre fa1l. Having r,rorked frcnt 193I to L949crcnLintrously in ttre Yukon, and then, too, in scrle odd years since, I writetLris frcnr rrentcry. I cannot irnagine where these "countless ntunbers of peoplefrcnr nt,any settlenrents . . . etc.tt were. I have never heard of ttrent before.There r^rere v,ood cutters and rapod piles for tfie stearnboats at 17 localitiesbefi,,leen liltritetrorse and Dawson in my years, and Ca::nad