Northern Ships and Shipping

Dateline: February 11, 2006. Last update: December 8, 2025.

The information on the Yukon that follows is simply a cut-and-paste from my database, compiled from a wide variety of sources, primarily the White Pass & Yukon Route corporate records (COR 722) at the Yukon Archives and various newspapers including The Whitehorse Star.

• U.S. Shipping Registry #165172

• wooden sternwheeler; 169.8 feet long, with 35.3 foot beam and 5.9 foot hold. Gross tonnage 651 (Affleck says 642), registered as 613 tons. One deck, sharp head and square stern.

• powered by a pair of horizontal high-pressure steam engines built by Seattle Machine Works; the cylinders had 16 inch diameter and 72 inch stroke, rated at 17 NHP, 400 IHP.

• 1913, Alaska and Yukon were built at Whitehorse by BYN crews for the newly-formed American Yukon Navigation Company; Affleck says that they were built (prefabricated?) at Seattle by Nilson & Kelez.

Friday, June 13, 1913

The Weekly Star (Whitehorse, Y.T.)

    While the Alaska and Yukon, the new steamers built by the White Pass company; will be identical in every respect, the former which is now lying at the wharf just opposite the depot and ready to sail, is a thing of beauty since she has been fitted up with her elegant new furnishings.

    The interior finishing of the observation room is of some modern creation which, varnished, gives it the appearance of walnut. It is furnished with upholstered arm chairs which were especially constructed in Chicago, being formed so as to fit the circle in the bow of the room without leaving any space between the outer edge of the chair seats. The dining room is also elegantly furnished and fitted, cut glass and silverware being everywhere in evidence.

    The Alaska and Yukon will accommodate sixty-five first-class passengers, counting but one person to the berth, although all the lower berths are double. Accommodations will also be provided for second-class passengers.

    In the matter of style, finish and general beauty, the new lower river steamers are in a class by themselves and, having been built for speed as well as comfort, they are certain to be popular with the traveling public.

    The Alaska will clear for Eagle, Alaska, today with all her capacity sold out. President Dickeson brought fifty crates of strawberries with him from Vancouver for use on the voyage; also 10,000 Colorado Maduras for the male passengers. The Yukon will follow the Alaska as soon as completed, which will be in five days or a week.

---

    Just after this paper of last week went to press the new steamer Yukon was successfully launched from the ways of the shipyards and she took to the water as gracefully as did her sister, the Alaska, a week or more previous. Mrs. Henderson, wife of Al. Henderson, foreman of the shipyards and designer of the new boats, presided at the launching, breaking a bottle of champagne across her bow just as she started down the greased ways to her future home, the water. A large crowd was present to witness the launching. Mrs. Henderson, accompanied by her mother, Mrs. George Walker, arrived from Victoria to join their husbands here only a few hours before.

• 1913-1914, wintered at Hootalinqua, in order to make the earliest trip direct to Fairbanks. The round trip from Whitehorse to Fairbanks was 1,950 miles (COR722).

• 1914, Master was John C. Green.

• 1914-1920, used on the Dawson-Fairbanks run; wintered at Whitehorse, so the first run of the season was Whitehorse-Fairbanks.

• 1915, converted to burn oil, and wheel changed from one with 14 buckets to one with 17 (COR722).

• 1917 season crew: purser, Jack Enright.

• 1917, false ceilings built into the Texas deck rooms, to keep them cooler in the summer (COR722).

• On October 25, 1918, 87 employees of the White Pass & Yukon Route died in the sinking of the Princess Sophia, including 15 crew members of the Yukon: J. Abelsen, deckhand; A.W. Anthony, deckhand; J. Bowker, second engineer; J.W. Brown, fireman; L.E. Clark, deckhand; Charles Craven, fireman; R. Finlay, deckhand; Capt. John C. Green, master; A.J. Greeny, deckhand; H.J. Kenyon, deckhand; Sam Koulouris, deckhand; J. Santaine, chief engineer; D. Solomeyer, fireman; W.A. Thompson, purser; R.W. Williams, waiter.

• 1919, used for the BYN's Midnight Sun excursions from Whitehorse to Fort Yukon; the Texas deck had 8 more rooms added to it (COR722).

• from 1924, Yukon was the AYNCo.'s only boat.

• 1929, received major work, including engine overhaul, 22 timbers replaced, etc. "The fruit house on the after end of the Yukon's Texas was raised to provide for the installation of bunks and the house turned over to the Steward's Department for use in sleeping members of that crew not already provided with adequate sleeping quarters." (COR723).

• 1929, making 2 round trips per month between Dawson and Nenana (COR723).

• 1935, captain for first seven trips season was McCann; then he was replaced by Newcomb.

• 1930, new flush toilets installed, and screen doors put on all the texas deck rooms.

• 1935, lengthened 6 feet in the bow (COR723).

• On September 8, 1935, her famous Chief Engineer, Joseph Robert "Joe" Mathews, died at the Hudson Stuck Memorial Hospital at Ft. Yukon, Alaska. Read the entire obituary here.

• 1935, while travelling through heavy ice on Lake Laberge on the way to the lower river, the hull was cracked. "Boat was beached and men dispatched to telegraph office at Lower Laberge to wire for assistance." White Horse was sent out with repair materials, and was guided through the broken ice by the company's airplane (COR723)

• 1936, Affleck says that she was rebuilt to 211 x 30 feet, 1.067 tons gross, 648 tons net; this is almost certainly incorrect.

• 1936, manned by a crew of 34.

• 1936, rebuilt at Eagle.

• 1942, the Alaska Yukon Navigation Co. dissolved, and the Yukon was sold to the Alaska Railroad.

Wednesday, August 4, 1948

(Note that she was built in Whitehorse, not Nenana, and ran primarily between Dawson City and Whitehorse.)

The Nome Nugget (Nome, Alaska)

    FAIRBANKS, (AP) - The gaudy old sternwheeler Yukon, once queen of the river whose name she bears, is going on the auction block.

    The Alaska Railroad, present owner of the 651-ton vessel, called yesterday for bids to be opened Aug. 10 at Anchorage. The bid call stipulates that the vessel must be removed to dry land and be used only for reasonably priced living quarters.

    The steamer has 45 staterooms with accommodations, including quarters, for 114 persons.

    The broad, flat-bottomed packet, now unseaworthy, is at Nenana, where she was built in 1913, as a luxury cruiser for the Canadian White Pass-Yukon fleet. She carried thousands of gold seekers and later tourists between Nenana on the Tanana River and Whitehorse before being sold to the Alaska Railroad during the war.

    Two years ago, while hauling freight and passengers to Yukon downriver points the steamer was hung high and dry on a sand bar and caught in the early freeze. The ice tore a gash in her hull.

• 1948: an unverified report says she was burned at Nenana this year.