'Highways of yesterday': Longtime Yukoners share stories about sternwheelers

What was it like to work on a sternwheeler on the Yukon River in the 1940s? Or travel between Dawson City and Whitehorse on board the S.S. Klondike?

Parks Canada, the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and the Ta'an Kwach'an Council hosted an event at the S.S. Klondike National Historic Site this week to gather peoples' stories about river boats and life along Yukon's rivers.

They are planning to use what they learned to update the historic site's outdoor interpretive panels, which could be ready for next summer.

Ione Christensen and James Miller were among those invited to share their sternwheeler memories. Christensen was born in Fort Selkirk in 1933. Miller is a Ta'an Kwach'an elder who started working on boats when he was 14 years old.

Highways of yesterday

Christensen called the Yukon and Stewart Rivers "the highways of yesterday."

"The steamboats were the trucks that hauled all of our supplies and brought them to us when we needed them," she said.

"The ships were our lifelines and the first 15 years of my life I watched them pass up and down the river in front of Fort Selkirk."

It was watching tourists arrive on sternwheelers like the S.S. Casca that gave Christensen her first idea as an entrepreneur at just six years old.

She said her father, who was a Mountie, put on his red serge, breeches and boots any time a boat arrived.

"I used to call it 'Daddy's steam boat clothes.' The tourists loved it. They always wanted to stand next to the Mountie," said Christensen.

"When I was around six years old I decided the tourist thing could really make a little bit of money," she said.

"So I got my big white husky, Sheep, and would sit on the bank with this dog beside me and the tourists would come off the boat and say, 'Oh look at that cute little girl with her big husky. Can we take a picture?'"

"And I'd say, 'Yes, 25 cents please.' That was my introduction into being an entrepreneur."

'Whenever I smell an orange, I see a steamboat'

"I never remember having an orange the whole time we were in Fort Selkirk," said Christensen.

"In those days, oranges — to get that far — just wouldn't make it."

"Maybe at Christmas time, if you were lucky, and the plane was coming down from Whitehorse, mother would be able to get two to three mandarins to put in your stocking, but that was a rarity too. The cost was prohibitive."

"But the boats served them for breakfast. And this was wonderful. The pantries and the kitchens were full of this smell of orange," said Christensen. "Whenever I smell an orange, I see a steamboat. It's synonymous with steamboats... I can smell it today."

'If you don't like it, throw it overboard'

Ta'an Kwach'an elder James Miller said he and school "didn't agree too much." So in 1948, when he was 14 years old, he went out looking for a summer job.

Miller said he can't remember who he talked to, but they agreed to hire him as a mess boy on a boat, washing dishes and peeling potatoes.

So he went to work on the Aksala, what he said was called "the workhorse of the company."

"I can remember that I was washing dishes and the cook would have everything laid out and I would serve the crew below deck," Miller recalled.

"They could have anything they want from what the cooks would cook. They treated their workers really, really well. Well-fed and well-looked after."

Miller said he remembers one time the cook had steaks and a "great big pan of cream corn" on the stove for the crew.

He said it must have sat there all day because when he went to wash it, the bottom of the pan was burnt.

Miller said the cook told him to be careful and not to scratch the bottom of the pan.

"I was a little hot-tempered at the time too, so I told him, 'I can't wash this thing. It's burnt right on there,'" he said.

"He said, 'If you don't like it, throw it overboard.'"

Miller mimed throwing the pan over the side of the boat and said it just went down the river.

"'I guess we'll have to get a new one when we get back to Whitehorse,'" Miller remembered the cook telling him.

He said the cook became one of his favourite people, especially after he let him take two pies home to his family.