OSCAR LETOURNEAU
Originally from Quebec, Oscar Letourneau was a pioneer of the beginning sites of Dawson City, of Mayo, and of other northern camps. For a long time, he was a miner in the region of Hunker Creek, near Dawson City where he was also a business man and very active in this city. Between 1905 and 1915, he was part of three businesses in Dawson City: Cadieux & Létourneau (1905), Roy et Létourneau ( 1914), and Létourneau and Caux (1915). In 1915-1916 he owned the Empire Hotel in Dawson City.
Létourneau took part in the great gold discoveries in the Mayo-Keno region. Early in 1910, he staked out a mining claim (with J. Williams, F. Cantin, J. Lelièvre, and D. Parent) on the Williams Creek, which was an affluent of the Duncan Creek. In 1919, he was among the miners who obtained concessions due to the gold rush started by Louis Bouvette.
During the 1920’s, Oscar Létourneau managed the hotel in Mayo. He was a man of grand projects: he built one of the biggest buildings of the village and gradually added to it until it became one of the most impressive in the whole of the Yukon. The Royal Alexandra Hotel, with its three stories and its 60 feet (18m) of frontage on 100 feet (30 m) deep, was thus easy to find. There, one could find all comforts possible at that time in history; electric lights, produced right there on site ; steam heat in all apartments, and the most sophisticated water and sewer services. The building situated at the corner of the 1st Avenue and Laurier Street also harbored a small restaurant and a general store where the citizens of that era could purchase dry goods and cigars and and even played billiards.
Oscar Létourneau also contributed to the development of Mayo by his participation in the life of the community. In 1920, when the Mayo school had no light because of a lack of kerosene, Létourneau accepted to supply electricity to the school as long as the Government supplied the transmission cable. In 1922, he was part of a committee that selected the site of the new Mayo hospital then he became a member of the Administrative Council of this institution. Létourneau is one of the founding members of the Chapter of the “Order of Pioneers of the Yukon” for Mayo. He was always the lively organizer for the “soirées”/dancing parties for each New Year’s parties and made his friends very pleased when he offered them products of maple syrup from Quebec.
Létourneau lost his hotel in a fire, but he remained in Mayo until the 1950’s then he returned to Quebec.
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