'A mother to the Yukon': Remembering Babe Richards
There are a lot of stories about the late Evelyn May — or, "Babe" — Richards, who died April 15, but one has been circulated more than most.
It's the one about the young Babe borrowing a bulldozer from the Alaska Highway crew, so she could build her own road to a lakeside spot she fancied. She did it over two weekends.
"Just because a girl has never borrowed a D8 Cat before to build a road, doesn't mean you can't do it!" said Erin McMullan, a friend and admirer who's writing Richards' biography.
The bulldozer story resonates with many because it captures the Babe Richards they remember — fearless, adventurous, hard-working, and tough as nails.
"You'll never meet a tougher woman in your entire existence. She just never allowed anything to pull her down," said her daughter Nona Loveless, the ninth of Richards' ten children.
"She got grit somewhere along the line, and I don't know, having ten children I'm sure would have brought some of that on!"
Mother Yukon
Richards died a month away from her 92nd birthday. On Monday, friends and family will gather in Whitehorse to commemorate and celebrate a woman one friend called "mother Yukon" (which is not a reference to Babe's ten children).
"Always a great lady, that's for sure," said friend Jim Robb, who first met Richards in 1955 as a young man, newly arrived in Yukon. "She always kind of symbolized a 'mother to the Yukon', I would say.
"I never met anybody quite like her."
Former Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie, who once lived with the Richards family, told biographer McMullan of Babe's important role in his life, offering guidance and no-nonsense discipline.
She was, the former Premier said, a "shining example of a strong Yukon woman."
Saw Yukon 'grow up'
Richards' background and life story is like a boiled-down, modern history of the territory.
Her great-grandfather had a hardware store at the foot of the Chilkoot Trail in Dyea, Alaska, selling goods to the prospectors heading up the "Trail of '98" to the Klondike.
Her father, T.C. Richards, was a legendary Whitehorse entrepreneur and gambler, who famously bought the Whitehorse Inn with the $20,000 he won in a hand of poker. The family home he built in the 1940s is now a designated Yukon historic site.
Babe (a nickname bestowed by her older brother, at birth) was born in Whitehorse in 1924, when it was a rugged 300-person outpost. By the time of her death, also in Whitehorse, it was a busy capital city of 27,000.
"She got to see the Yukon grow up," said her daughter Nona Loveless, who now lives in B.C.
Richards lived all but five years of her life in Yukon — in Whitehorse, Watson Lake and Upper Liard (she briefly lived in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John, B.C.).
She was a dedicated volunteer for countless local organizations and "worked her butt off" to raise money for them, Loveless said. She also logged many hours driving seniors around.
"She did that her whole entire life until she gave up driving. And I'lI almost guarantee you that her last trip in a vehicle was to drive a senior somewhere."
'Life is about changing'
McMullan remembers Richards as a sort of mentor, who befriended her when McMullan moved to Yukon in 2008.
"I think Yukon was really her heart. That's where she had her happy childhood experiences, that's where her children were born," said McMullan.
Babe was a "natural born storyteller" who encouraged McMullan — a "Cheechako" — to forge her own path.
"Life is about changing, you have to learn how to adapt," McMullan was told.
That rings true for Nona Loveless, who also remembers her mom as someone who encouraged resilience and positivity — and straight talk — above almost everything else.
"She always told us, 'I'm not raising you to love me, I'm raising you to make your way in the world.' And she let each and every one of us make our own way in the world, but she stood behind us, rock solid.
"And if we were screwing it up, she'd let us know!"
A "Celebration of Life" for Babe Richards will be held at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre in Whitehorse, Monday at 2 p.m.
