LANDREVILLE, MAXIME (326 ENGLISH)

LANDREVILLE, MAXIME  (326 ENGLISH)

                               LANDREVILLE, MAXIME

The official  representative of the French-Canadian miners in the Klondike

Maxime Landreville was a Franco-phone journalist who arrived in the Yukon in 1898. During that same year he was one of two representatives chosen to report the  demands of the Dawson City miners to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in Ottawa. Maxime Landreville represented the French-Canadian party.  The miners’ complaints essentially concerned the inefficiency of the administration then and the corruption which reigned there.  Among other things, they denounced the favoritism which certain civil servants were guilty of, and the favoritism in the allocation of mining concessions, and in the granting  of permits for cutting wood to supply Dawson City.

Their initiative in this field was successful: the administrators were replaced and Landreville won a personal victory.  From 1903 to 1905, then from 1909 to 1912, he was a councilor for the district of the Klondike in the middle of the Yukon Territorial Council. Very well known by the population, he participated in over fifteen christenings, marriages and funerals of the Franco-phone population from 1900 to 1929.

Parallel to his political career, he worked as a true miner.  He was also the proprietor of much real estate land in the region and, in 1903 co-owner of the Empire Hotel.  In 1922, he participated in the construction of the first hospital in Mayo with Alex Nicol.

Maxime Landreville died in Dawson City on December 12, 1938 aged 78.  A mount or small mountain situated in the northern part of the Yukon was named in his honor.

Ref: L’Empreinte, vol 11, page 43