Former Yukon Party premier Dennis Fentie has died of cancer, the party confirmed this morning.

Fentie served two terms as premier, beginning in 2002 and ending in 2011, when he decided not to seek re-election.

Craig Tuton, a longtime friend and political ally of the former leader, described the 68-year-old Fentie as a no-nonsense man of principle, who got things done.

He said Fentie died last night at Whitehorse General Hospital.

“When Dennis said something, and he said he wanted to do something, he meant it,” Tuton told the Star.

Fentie was first elected to office in 1996 – when Piers McDonald formed a government – to represent Watson Lake as an NDP MLA.

He was re-elected in 2000 under the orange banner, but in 2002 decided to seek the leadership of the Yukon Party.

“I was the guy he came to way back when he decided he wanted to take a run at the Yukon Party leadership,” Tuton recalled.

“I kind of looked at him and said, ‘you want to do what?’

“And that is kind of what I said.”

Tuton said while serving his first years as an MLA, Fentie began formulating ideas of how he could best serve the Yukon. He felt that to obtain his goals, it was best to align himself with the Yukon Party.

Fentie successfully led the party to a majority government in late 2002, ousting Pat Duncan’s two-year-old Liberal regime, and gained another victory in 2006.

Inside that truck driver and logger from Watson Lake was a man who had a vision for the territory and a commitment to fulfill it, Tuton said.

He said you never left a meeting with Fentie wondering what was on his mind.

“He lived up to his words,” said Tuton. “I think he was one of the best premiers we ever had.”

When a smear campaign began based on Fentie’s time in an Alberta jail for trafficking drugs in the 1970s, prior to his moving to the Yukon, Tuton said, the former premier was unwavering, and maintained his commitment to the Yukon.

“He said, ‘that was then, this is now.’”

Yukon Party Leader Stacey Hassard issued a statement this morning about Fentie:

“Over his nine years as premier, he was instrumental in negotiating a better health care funding agreement between the territories and Canada as well as for getting improvements to the territorial formula financing arrangements.

“Thanks to the hard work of Dennis, Yukon has made huge progress in implementing devolution and growing up as a territory.

“While placing a focus on growing the economy, Dennis wanted Yukon to utilize its prosperity by supporting a strong health care system while also promoting safer communities.

“Thanks to these efforts, Yukoners now have access to modern hospitals in the communities of Dawson City and Watson Lake.

“A hard-working premier who always had the best interests of Yukon at heart, Dennis was, above all else, a great friend to all of us, and he will be sincerely missed,” Hassard added.

“Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family.”

“The Yukon Legislative Assembly and its staff are saddened to hear of the recent passing of former premier Dennis Fentie,” Nils Clarke, the Speaker of the legislative assembly, said in a statement early this afternoon.

During the later stages of his career as premier, it emerged that Fentie was exploring the concept of selling off Yukon Energy to the private sector, without any public announcement to that effect.

Then-cabinet minister Brad Cathers resigned in protest, and sat across the government as an independent.

Cathers rejoined the caucus after Darrell Pasloski won the party leadership in 2011, following Fentie’s retirement. Pasloski went on to prevail in the 2011 election.

That period of politics saw Willard Phelps, the leader of the former Yukon Territorial Progressive Conservative Party from 1985 until the early 1990s, explore forming a new political party to take on the Yukon Party in the 2011 election. Phelps dropped the plan after Fentie left politics.

Fentie joins Chris Pearson and John Ostashek as late Yukon government leaders since party politics were formally entrenched in 1978.

No one from either the Liberal cabinet office, nor Yukon MP Bagnell, were available for comment before press time this afternoon.

– With a file from Jim Butler