TALES OF THE YUKON (252 ENGLISH)

 SHORT STORIES OF FRENCH-CANADIANS IN THE YUKON (252 ENGLISH )


    YUKON

I have quite a few stories of the Yukon which I’ve found quite interesting.  Although we had gone twice to the Yukon, I also learned many things about this corner of the country.

When I started to write about the Yukon, I did not feel that this was a contract, but only that I wished to share come experiences about some people who originated from France, Switzerland and Quebec.  I estimate that 90% of the Franco-phones who reached the Klondike came from “La belle Province”. Some stayed a few years, others adopted the Yukon as their second home.

If more readers continue to read these stories, I’ll add more stories.

In June 1999, we were in Whitehorse, Yukon and I had gone to the Franco-phone office there.  Barely inside the door, I was welcomed by Pierre Bourgault whom I’d met when he was the director of the ACFA (l’Association Canadienne Française de l’Alberta) (the Association of French Canadians of Alberta) in Lethbridge, AB. Here he described some of the projects of the dynamic association of Whitehorse.

Before I continue the stories, I’m going to give you a part of the introduction:

The Franco-phone presence in the Yukon goes back to the beginning of the X1X  century.  Many are those who left their imprint: Those responsible for commercial booths, trappers, gold-seekers, business-people, professionals and men and women searching for adventure.  Many geographic areas witness to their passing.  Perhaps you know of Emilie Tremblay. The first French school in Whitehorse  was named in honor of this pioneer. If you have read, “Un jardin sur le toit” (A Garden on the Roof), a novel concerning the Franco-phones of the Yukon, you may recall some names mentioned.  But do you know of the hundreds of other Franco-phones who contributed to the development of the Yukon? The AFY (L’Association Franco-yukonaise) (the Association of Franco-Yukoners) has been interested in this question for years, but it is in October 1995 that the present project on the historical research aiming to establish a list of Franco-phones who came to this area before 1950 was started. Over the years, facts were assembled and systemized by the AFY and others were added from  various sources: books  on the Yukon, newspapers of the era, Royal Canadian Northwest Mounted Police lists, land registries, lists of deaths, of births, of marriages, in Dawson City etc.  This document produced and regrouped over the years more than 2000 Franco-phone names, each described by a more or less long text. For some, there is only a name, for others there is the origin of the person named, of the date of arrival in the Yukon, or even the date when he or she first purchased land.  For others, there is the joy of reading a whole page of history.