or '''Yukon Territory''' or (often) '''the Yukon''' is one of
Canada's northern
Territories , in the country's extreme northwest. It has a population of about 31,000, and its capital is
Whitehorse , with a population of 23,272. People from Yukon are known as ''Yukoners''.
The territory is named after the
Yukon River , which means "great river" in
Gwich'in .
Disputed evidence of the oldest remains of human inhabitation in North America have been found in the Yukon. A large number of apparently human modified animal bones were discovered in the , as they were part of
Beringia .
At about 800 AD, a large
Volcanic eruption in
Mount Churchill near the
Alaska border blanketed the southern Yukon with ash. That layer of ash can still be seen along the
Klondike Highway . Yukon
First Nations stories speak of all the animal and fish dying as a result. Similar stories are told among the
Athabaskan -speaking
Navaho and
Apache , leading to the conclusion by some anthropologists that the migration of Athabaskan peoples into what is now the
Southwestern United States could have been due to the eruption. After that, the hunting technology saw the replacement of
Atlatl s with
Bows And Arrows .
Extensive trading networks between the coastal
Tlingit s and the interior First Nations developed, where the coastal peoples would trade
Eulachon oil and other coastal goods for native copper and furs found in the interior.
European incursions into what later became the Yukon started in the first half of the 19th century.
Hudson's Bay Company explorers and traders from
Mackenzie River trading posts used two different routes to enter the Yukon and created trading posts along the way. The northern route started in
Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories along the
Mackenzie River , crossed the mountains into the
Bell and
Porcupine River s to the
Yukon River . The southern route started at
Fort Liard, Northwest Territories , then westward along the
Liard River to
Frances Lake and then along the
Pelly River to its juncture with the Yukon River.
After establishing
Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories ,
John Bell crossed the mountains into the Yukon River watershed in 1845, and went down the Rat River (today the Bell River) to its confluence with the
Porcupine River . After managing the fur trade at Fort McPherson, he returned to the Bell River, and followed the Porcupine to its juncture with the Yukon River, the eventual site of
Fort Yukon . Soon after,
Alexander Hunter Murray established trading posts at
Lapierre House (1846) and at
Fort Yukon (1847) at the juncture of the Porcupine and the Yukon Rivers. Murray drew numerous sketches of fur trade posts and of people and wrote the ''Journal of the Yukon, 1847–48'', which give valuable insight into the culture of local
Gwich'in First Nation people at the time. While the post was actually in
Russian Alaska , the Hudson's Bay Company continued to trade there until expelled by the American traders in 1869, following the
Alaska Purchase . A new trading post,
Rampart House was established upstream along the Porcupine, but it also proved to be just inside Alaska's boundary. Gwich'in people, especially under the leadership of
Sahneuti , played off the Hudson's Bay company against American traders from the
Alaska Commercial Company .
At about the same time,
Robert Campbell (fur Trader) , coming from
Fort Simpson explored a large part of the southern Yukon and established
Fort Frances (1842) on
Frances Lake in the
Liard River basin and
Fort Selkirk, Yukon (1848) at the juncture of the
Yukon River and the
Pelly River . In 1852, Fort Selkirk was attacked and burned down by
Tlingit warriors from the coast who objected to its interference with their trade. Fort Selkirk was abandoned and not reestablished until 1889.
Anglican and
Roman Catholic Missionaries followed in the wake of the fur trade. Of note is
William Carpenter Bompas who became the first Anglican
Bishop of the Yukon. Catholic missionaries were mainly from the order of
Missionary Oblates Of Mary Immaculate , who still retain a presence in the Yukon today.
In 1859
Robert Kennicott set off on an expedition to collect natural history specimens in the what is now the
Mackenzie River and Yukon River valleys and in the
Arctic Tundra beyond. Kenicott became popular with Hudson's Bay Company fur traders in the area and encouraged them to collect and send natural history specimens and First Nations artifacts to the Smithsonian. In 1865 the
Western Union Telegraph Expedition was mounted to find a possible route for a telegraph line between North America and
Russia by way of the
Bering Sea . Kennicott was the chief scientist for this expedition and the party of naturalists sent to assist him included
W.H. Dall . Kennicott died of a heart attack while travelling up the Yukon River. However, Kennicott's efforts brought what is now the Yukon to the world's attention.
Rumours of the presence of gold in the area had been reported by Hudson's Bay Company traders, but little had been done about them. Following the Alaska purchase and the abandonment of Rampart house, Alaska Commercial Company traders started working along the upper Yukon River. Three miners —
Alfred Mayo ,
Jack McQuesten and
Arthur Harper — having heard of these rumours, went to work for the Alaska Commercial Company as traders, although their main interest was in the gold prospects. In 1874, Mayo and McQuesten established
Fort Reliance , a few miles downstream of what later became
Dawson City . Miners and prospectors slowly trickled in, and gold was found in many areas but rarely in paying quantities. In 1885, a paying amount of gold was found on the
Stewart River , and McQuesten convinced the Alaska Commercial Company to start catering to miners rather than focussing only on the fur trade. The following year, paying quantities of coarse gold were found on the
Fortymile River , and a new trading post,
Fortymile, Yukon was established at the confluence of the Fortymile with the Yukon River
At the same time as the initial gold discoveries were being made, the
US Army sent lieutenant
Frederick Schwatka to reconnoiter the Yukon River by the US Army. Going over the
Chilkoot Pass , his party built rafts and floated down the Yukon River to its mouth in the Bering Sea, naming many geographic features along the way. Schwatka's expedition alarmed the Canadian government, who then sent an expedition under
George Mercer Dawson in 1887.
William Ogilvie , a surveyor who was later to become famous during the Klondike gold Rush and was part of Dawson's expedition surveyed the boundary with Alaska.
In 1894, concerned about the influx of American miners and the liquor trade, the Canadian government sent inspector
Charles Constantine of the
Northwest Mounted Police to examine conditions in the Yukon district. Constantine forecast that a gold rush was imminent and reported that there was an urgent need for a police force. In the following year, he went back to the Yukon with a force of 20 men who were in place when the Klondike Gold Rush started in 1897.
See Also: Klondike Gold Rush
The
Klondike Gold Rush was the seminal event in the Yukon's history. A party led by
Skookum Jim Mason discovered
Gold on a tributary of the
Klondike River in August 1896. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people braved numerous hardships to reach the
Klondike gold fields in the winter and spring of 1897-98 after the discovery became known in 1897. With the influx of American stampeders, the Canadian government decided to create a separate territory to better control the situation. In 1901, after many had gone back, the
Census put the population of the territory at 27,219, a figure that was not reached again until 1991. The influx of people greatly stimulated mineral exploration in other parts of the Yukon and led to two subsidiary gold rushes in
Atlin, British Columbia and
Nome, Alaska as well as a number of mini-rushes. Transportation needs to the gold fields led to the construction of the
White Pass And Yukon Railway .
After the gold rush, the population of the territory declined precipitously, reaching a low of 4,157 in 1921 and remained fairly steady until the 1940s. This was despite the development of other mining areas including silver in
Conrad, Yukon and especially near
Mayo , gold in the
Kluane Lake area, and copper near
Whitehorse . In the
Klondike , individual miners' claims were bought out and consolidated with the help of the government by a small number of companies, including the
Guggenheim 's
Yukon Gold Corporation who used large floating
Dredge s. The
Yukon Consolidated Gold Company continued to dredge for gold until the 1960s. A brief period of prosperity ensued during the 1930s when the price of gold rose.
By 1920 the elected territorial council had been reduced to three members and the territory was directly ruled by the
Gold Commissioner , a federal civil servant reporting to the
Minister Of The Interior .
The next important event in the Yukon's history was the construction of the
Alaska Highway during the
Second World War , which, after its badly needed reconstruction by the Canadian Government in the late 1940s, opened up the territory to road traffic. The war also saw the construction of a number of airfields as part of the
Northwest Staging Route . However, the influx of southern highway construction crews had a devastating effect on some
First Nations , who suffered from a large number of deaths from diseases to which they had no immunity.
Other
Highways were built during the 1950s and 1960s, resulting the decline and disappearance of the
Riverboat s that had provided the main means of transportation until the 1960s. In the 1950s, the
White Pass & Yukon Route pioneered the use of
Intermodal Containerized shipping. Mining activity also revived, including copper mining in Whitehorse, silver and lead in
Keno and
Elsa , asbestos in
Clinton Creek . The world's largest
Open-pit zinc and lead mine was opened in
Faro in the early 1970s. Gold mining came back to the Klondike and other areas with the large rise in gold prices in the late 1970s.
In the 1980s and 1990s, mining declined and the role of government increased considerably with larger and larger transfers from the federal government. In 1978,
Responsible Government was achieved and party politics were established. On another front,
First Nations started lobbying and entered in
Land Claims Negotiations in the 1970s which culminated in the signing of an "Umbrella Final Agreement" in 1992. Although most First Nations have signed agreements, land claims and self-government negotiations are still going on today. The First Nations are now considered a fourth level of government and the specific nature of inter-governmental relationships is still being worked out.
See Also: Geography of the Yukon
The very sparsely populated territory abounds with natural scenic beauty, with snowmelt lakes and perennial whitecapped mountains. Although the climate is arctic and subarctic and very dry, with long cold winters, the long sunshine hours in short summer allow hardy crops and vegetables, along with a profusion of flowers and fruit to blossom.
The territory is the approximate shape of a right triangle, bordering the
American state of
Alaska to the west, the
Northwest Territories to the east and
British Columbia to the south. Its northern coast is on the
Beaufort Sea . Its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the
Divide between the Yukon Basin and the
Mackenzie River Watershed to the east in the Mackenzie mountains.
Canada's highest point,
Mount Logan (5959 m), is found in the territory's southwest. Mount Logan and a large part of the Yukon's southwest are in
Kluane National Park And Reserve , a UNESCO
World Heritage Site . Other National Parks include
Ivvavik National Park and
Vuntut National Park in the north.
Most of the territory is in the watershed of its namesake, the
Yukon River . The southern Yukon is dotted with a large number of large, long and narrow glacier-fed alpine lakes, most of which flow into the Yukon River system. The larger lakes include
Teslin Lake ,
Atlin Lake ,
Tagish Lake ,
Marsh Lake ,
Lake Laberge ,
Kusawa Lake , and
Kluane Lake .
Lake Bennett, B.C., on the
Klondike Gold Rush trail is a smaller lake flowing into
Tagish Lake .
Other watersheds include the
Mackenzie River , the Alsek-Tatshenshini as well as a number of rivers flowing directly into the Beaufort Sea. The two main Yukon rivers flowing into the
Mackenzie in the
Northwest Territories are the
Liard River in the southeast and the
Peel River and its tributaries in the northeast.
The capital, Whitehorse, is also the largest city, with about two-thirds of the population; the second largest is
Dawson City , (pop. 1800) which was the capital until
1952 . Other communities include
Beaver Creek (88),
Burwash Landing (68),
Carcross (201),
Carmacks (431),
Destruction Bay (43),
Faro (313),
Haines Junction (531),
Marsh Lake (400?),
Mayo (366),
Old Crow (299),
Pelly Crossing (328),
Ross River (337),
Tagish (206),
Teslin (267), and
Watson Lake (1,071).
¹ Part of Whitehorse
Census Agglomeration
The territory's historical major industry is
Mining , including
Lead ,
Zinc ,
Silver ,
Gold ,
Asbestos and
Copper . Indeed, the territory owes its existence to the famous
Klondike Gold Rush of the
1890s . Having acquired the land from the
Hudson's Bay Company in
1870 , the Canadian government divided the territory off of the
Northwest Territories in
1898 to fill the need for local government created by the influx of prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Thousands of these prospectors, led by the chance at gold, flooded the area, creating a colourful period recorded by authors such as
Robert W. Service and
Jack London . (See also
Royal Canadian Mounted Police .) The memory of this period, as well as the territory's scenic wonders and outdoor recreation opportunities, makes
Tourism the second most important industry.
Manufacturing, including furniture, clothing, and handicrafts, follows in importance, along with
Hydroelectricity . The traditional industries of
Trapping and
Fishing have declined.
Today, the government sector is by far the biggest employer in the territory, directly employing approximately 5,000 out of a labour force of 12,500.
In the past, the major transportation artery was the
Yukon River system, both before the Gold Rush and after. As well, the coastal
Tlingit people traded with the Athabascan people using passes through the coastal mountains. See also
Chilkoot Pass ,
Dalton Trail .
From the Gold Rush until the 1950s,
Riverboats plied the
Yukon River , most between
Whitehorse at the head of navigation and
Dawson City , but some going further into
Alaska and down to the
Bering Sea , and others along tributaries of the Yukon River such as the Stewart River.
Most of the riverboats were owned by the British-Yukon Navigation co, an arm of the
White Pass And Yukon Route , which also operated a narrow-gauge railway from
Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse. The railway ceased operation in the 1980s with the first closure of the
Faro mine. It is now operated as a summer time tourist train, though not on any Yukon section of the line.
Today, major land transportation routes include the
Alaska Highway , which passes through Whitehorse; the
Klondike Highway going from tidewater in
Skagway, Alaska through Whitehorse to Dawson City; the
Haines Highway from
Haines, Alaska to
Haines Junction, Yukon , and the
Dempster Highway from the Klondike Highway to
Inuvik, Northwest Territories . All these highways, except for the Dempster, are paved. Other highways with less traffic include the Campbell Highway which goes from Carmacks on the Klondike Highway, through Faro and Ross River, and veers south to join the Alaska Highway in Watson Lake, and the Silver Trail which forks off the Klondike Highway at the Stewart River bridge to connect the old silver mining communities of Mayo, Elsa and Keno City. All Yukon communities except one are accessible by mostly paved roads, but air travel is the only way to reach one remote community in the Far North (
Old Crow ).
The air transport infrastructure is well developed with
Whitehorse International Airport serving as the hub with direct flights to
Vancouver ,
Calgary ,
Edmonton ,
Fairbanks ,
Juneau and
Frankfurt (summer months). Every community is served by an
Airport , and the air charter industry is quite extensive serving mainly the tourism and mining exploration industries.
Like the provinces, and unlike the other two territories, the Yukon's
Unicameral Legislature has a
Party System . Prior to 1979 the territory was administered by the
Commissioner who is appointed by the federal
Minister Of Indian Affairs And Northern Development . The Commissioner used to chair and had a role in appointing the territory's ''Executive Council'' and had a day to day role in governing the territory. The elected ''Territorial Council'' had a purely advisory role. In 1979, a significant degree of power was
Devolved from the federal government and Commissioner to the territorial legislature which, in that year, adopted a party system of
Responsible Government . This was done through a letter from
Jake Epp , the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development rather than through formal legislation.
The ''Yukon Act'', passed in 2002, formalised the powers of the Yukon government and devolved a number of additional powers to the territorial government (e.g. control over land and natural resources). As of 2002, other than criminal prosecutions, the Yukon government has much of the same powers as provincial governments and the other two territories are looking to obtaining the same powers. Today the role of Commissioner is analogous to that of a provincial
Lieutenant-governor ; however, unlike lieutenant-governors, Commissioners are not formal representatives of the
Queen , but are employees of the Federal government.
In preparation for responsible government, political parties were organised and ran candidates to the territorial legislature for the first time in 1978. The
Progressive Conservatives won these elections and formed the first party government of Yukon in January 1979. The
Yukon New Democratic Party (NDP) formed the government from 1985 to 1992 under
Tony Penikett and again from 1996 under
Piers McDonald until being defeated in 2000. The conservatives returned to power in 1992 under
John Ostashek after having renamed themselves the
Yukon Party . The
Liberal government of
Pat Duncan was defeated in elections in November
2002 , with
Dennis Fentie of the
Yukon Party forming the government as
Premier .
Although there has been discussion in the past about the Yukon becoming Canada's 11th province, it is generally felt that its population base is too sparse for this to occur at present. As well, the government of
British Columbia did propose to take over the territory on a number of occasions.
At the federal level, the territory is presently represented in the
Parliament Of Canada by a single
Member Of Parliament and one
Senator . In contrast to
United States Territories , Canadian territories' members of Parliament are full and equal voting representatives and residents of the territory enjoy the same rights as other Canadian citizens. One Yukon Member of Parliament —
Eric Nielsen — was the
Deputy Prime Minister under the
Mulroney government, while another —
Audrey McLaughlin — was the leader of the federal
New Democratic Party .
The Yukon was one of eight jurisdictions in Canada to offer
Same-sex Marriage before the passage of Canada's
Civil Marriage Act , along with
British Columbia ,
Manitoba ,
Newfoundland And Labrador ,
Nova Scotia ,
Ontario ,
Quebec and
Saskatchewan . See
Same-sex Marriage In Yukon .
Much of the population of the territory is
First Nations . An
Umbrella Land Claim Agreement representing 7,000 members of fourteen different First Nations was signed with the federal government in
1991 . Each of the individual First Nations then has to negotiate a specific land claim and a self-government agreement. As of December 2005, eleven of the 14 First Nations had a signed agreement. The fourteen First Nation governments are:
- Carcross/Tagish First Nation – based in Carcross, Yukon
- Champagne And Aishihik First Nations – based in Haines Junction, Yukon
- First Nation Of Nacho Nyak Dun – based in Mayo, Yukon
- Kluane First Nation – based in Burwash Landing, Yukon
- Kwanlin Dün First Nation – based in Whitehorse, Yukon
- Liard River First Nation – based in Watson Lake, Yukon
- Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation – based in Carmacks, Yukon
- Ross River Dena Council – based in Ross River, Yukon
- Selkirk First Nation – based in Pelly Crossing, Yukon
- Ta'an Kwach'an Council – based in Whitehorse, Yukon
- Teslin Tlingit Council – based in Teslin, Yukon
- Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation – based in Dawson City, Yukon
- Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation – based in Old Crow, Yukon
- White River First Nation – based in Beaver Creek, Yukon
The territory once had an
Inuit settlement, located on
Herschel Island off the
Arctic coast. This settlement was dismantled in
1987 and its inhabitants relocated to the neighboring
Northwest Territories . As a result of the
Inuvialuit Final Agreement , the island is now a territorial park and is known officially as
Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park , Qikiqtaruk being the name of the island in
Inuktitut .
- Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison (1988). ''Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon''. Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton. ISBN 0-88830-331-9
