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The Weekly Star

Whitehorse, Yukon,     Friday, September 4, 1936

Dr. H. J. Nunn Passes Away (on separate page)

Newsy Notes on Doings of Whitehorsers in Dawson, 1936

    Recent arrivals from Dawson have given the Star a little inside dope on our boys now located in the northern metropolis.

    Bud Harbottle is almost head man for the McCormick freighting firm and drives the Maple Leaf ten-wheel truck and is kept busy on the road night and day.

    Norman Murray, well known local lad and hockey player who left this fair city several years ago to try his luck at Dawson, is doing well and is employed by the big mining company.

    Chuck Caddy is fast becoming a thawing plant expert and is located on 17 Dominion, some 30 odd miles ot of Dawson. Chuck has cultivated a flourishing moustache and it becomes him very well.

    Mrs. Dalton Farr, nee Miss Ardrie Harbottle, is located on Quartz Creek where her husband is employed. Mrs. Farr has a comfortable home on the creek and, in keeping house and looking after her little blue-eyed darling baby daughter, she is kept busy.

    F. N. Gisborne, former local banker, is looking after the interests of the Canadian Bank of Commerce at Dawson in a very capable manner and we understand he likes Dawson very well.

    Jack Weise is kept on his toes at the N. C. Store at Dawson but still finds time to assist the orchestra at the dances, that is when he is not sparking the tourist girls. Jack sends his regards to one of the Whitehorse girl but we are not mentioning any names (Say thank you, Jack).

    Mrs. A. E. Yeulet and family are now nicely located at Dawson and find it a busy centre.

    Ted and Ray Richards are both working. Ted has contributed several articles to the Dawson News and some day hopes to get permanently located in the newspaper world. Ray is working with the government crew.

    Norman Ryder is on the job hauling freight and supplies over to the Holbrook Dredge on the 60 Mile. Norman's chief pastime is playing cribb and he has yet to meet his peer.

    Mr. and Mrs. William Thompson are operating the City Cafe on First Avenue and month ago Bill celebrated the first anniversary of the opening.

Veteran Yukon Telegrapher to Enjoy Holiday Trip Outside, 1936

    Howard McMillan, government telegraph operator at Carmacks, and Mrs. McMillan, were arrivals on Thursday enroute to New York to enjoy a nine month vacation.

    Mr. McMillan will also undergo medical treatment before returning north next year.

    A. R. Hayes of the government telegraph staff, is relieving at Carmacks.

First Trip Outside in Twenty Years for Banker, 1936

    Otto Nordling, teller at the Bank of Montreal in Dawson, arrived in town on Wednesday by plane enroute outside, where he is being transferred.

    It is over 20 years since Mr. Nordling came to the Yukon and for the last nine years he has been employed by the Bank of Montreal at Dawson.

    After giving the town the "once-over" he stated it was a pretty nice little place and is very favorably impressed by the manner in which people take care of their property, and the general neatness of the town.

LOCAL NOTES

    Mr. J. Rice returned on Thursday after holidaying in Skagway.

.       .       .

    George McLachlan, telegrapher of the White Pass staff at Whitehorse, made a trip to Dawson by company plane yesterday to renew old acquaintances in his former home town.

.       .       .

    E. Wilson was an arrival on Thursday's steamer after a trip to Carmacks.

.       .       .

    Lawrence Porter, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Porter, returned on the launch Loon Monday after spending the summer holidaying at Hootalinqua.

.       .       .
    The 1930s were not a good period for Whitehorse - while gold mining kept Dawson City humming and silver mining had made Elsa and Keno City famous around the world, Whitehorse was slowly dying - in 1936 the population would have been 3-400. It existed because it was where people transferred from the White Pass & Yukon Route trains to river steamers, which were also mostly owned by the WP&YR's British Yukon Navigation Company. The BYN shipyards were the main employer at Whitehorse, with the S. S. Klondike under construction when this issue of The Weekly Star was published.
  • The "big mining company" that Norman Murray was working for was the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation (YCGC) - by the 1930s, Dawson was virtually a "company town".

  • the thawing plant that Chuck Caddy was becoming an expert in was used to thaw the permafrost (permanently frozen ground) ahead of YCGC's huge gold dredges.

  • The "N. C. Store" that Jack Weise was working at was operated by the huge Northern Commercial Company, formerly the Alaska Commercial Company. The store burned in 1951, but the associated Northern Commercial Company Warehouse in Dawson is a registered Canadian Heritage Building.

  • Bank teller Otto Nordling left his mark on the Yukon. The Biographical Sketch in his collection at the Yukon Archives says:
    "Otto Nordling was born in Sweden in 1893, and came to the Yukon as a child. After graduating from the Dawson high school he worked in Dawson as a banker until shortly before WWII, when he became a career army officer. He married Captain Margery Langly in Vancouver in 1945. Nordling actively encouraged Yukon to develop a new coat of arms and flag, helped promote the works of Yukon balladeer Thomas Brooks, and strongly supported the various sourdough organizations. Nordling compiled a collection of newspaper clippings about and correspondence with Yukon sourdoughs, intending to write a history of the Yukon and its early residents. The Nordlings moved from the Yukon to North Vancouver in the 1970s. Otto Nordling died in 1978."

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