DAWSON CITY – Michael Gates doesn’t consider himself to be a military historian, so writing From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon in World War I took him some distance outside his comfort zone.

But, Gates was formerly the curator of collections for Klondike National Historic Sites (KNHS) in Dawson City.

Those parts of the World War I narrative that concern the Yukon are mostly centred in Dawson, which was still the territorial capital until after the Second World War.

His latest book will be launched this evening in Whitehorse.

Two of Gates’ previous books – Gold at Fortymile Creek: Early Days in the Yukon (UBC Press, 1994); and Dalton’s Gold Rush Trail: Exploring the Route of the Klondike Cattle Drives (Harbour Publishing, 2012) – have been connected to his years at KNHS.

While living in Dawson, Gates helped to found the Klondike Sun newspaper and began writing the occasional social history oriented essays that eventually became his History Hunter column for the Yukon News, and led to the 2010 collection History Hunting in the Yukon (Harbour Publishing).

He has recently passed the 500-column mark on this project. It has helped him to develop a more popular style of writing, as contrasted with the academic material he wrote for Parks Canada.

It has also taken Gates away from the strict limits of Klondike geography and time frame which had been his original focus.

He feels that the Gold Rush emphasis has unfairly detracted from other Yukon stories that deserve more attention.

His two book-length ventures both deal with neglected aspects of the history. That was part of what intrigued him about the World War I story, something for which he found that very little had been written up to this point.

Then too, his wife, Kathy, inherited the task of writing the definitive biography of George Black from the late Flo Whyard. Her spouse has been contributing to that project as well as working on his own material.

He says the notion of dealing with the territory’s largely under-reported Great War contributions had been rattling around in his head for a few years, as he leaned more about the Blacks’ contribution to the cause.

The final nudge came from spending two years on the planning committee for The North and the First World War Conference, which was held in Whitehorse and Dawson last May.

By the time that committee was only a few months old, it was clear that Gates would write a book about the Yukon’s contributions to the war effort, just as Whitehorse resident Max Fraser was going to produce a film about Joe Boyle.

That Boyle would be one of the focus characters of the book was also clear, as his largely ignored story, an epic that has somehow never managed to capture the attention of Hollywood, is so dramatic.

So too, was the wartime story of Robert Service, the Bard of the Klondike.

His experiences as an ambulance driver and (almost) a spy, caused him to write Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, and capture the ambiance and reality of the war zone as well or better, than any of the more celebrated literary war poets.

Then, of course, there were George and Martha Black, whose service before, during, and after the war contributed a lot of choice material, as did the experience of their son, Lyman.

Gates’ research turned up the real life case of “Grizzly Bear” Jim Christie, whose bout with a grizzly bear in the Klondike five years prior to the war bears uncanny resemblance to the story told in the recent movie, The Revenant.

Only Christie went on to enlist, was known as one of the best shots and most capable soldiers, and survived the war to end his working career as a park ranger in Jasper, Alta. and live into his seventies on Salt Spring Island, B.C.

Gates couldn’t tell the stories of the nearly 1,000 men and women, nearly 20 per cent of the Yukon’s population at the time, who served.

“They were lawyers, bankers, piano tuners, dockworkers and miners who became soldiers, nurses and snipers; brave men and women who traded the isolated beauty of the North for the muddy, crowded horror of the battlefields.”

Those who stayed home were no less important to the war’s outcome, he notes: “By March of 1916, the Dawson Daily News estimated that Yukoners had donated often and generously at a rate of $12 per capita compared to the dollar per person donated elsewhere in the country. “

As many names as could be found are listed in an appendix at the end of the book, one of the fruits of his collaboration with the First World War Conference committee and the Yukon Historical and Museums Association.

Gates decided on a chronological structure for the book, with occasional extensions in order to follow a particular individual.

“1914-1916” follows the early part of the war, when not much was happening for either the Boyle or Black recruits, as they had not yet made it to England, to be trained before being injected into the battlefield.

“1917” chronicles a very intense year, while “1917-1918” reflects on changes at home, the winding-down of the conflict.

There was also the sinking of the Princess Sophia, which did an incredible amount of damage to the social structure of the community. You expected lives to be lost in the war, but not in a passenger ship sunk in a storm on its regular route.

The war nearly killed the Yukon. The loss of population was tremendous; even quite a few of the survivors did not return to the Klondike, as they found easier opportunities Outside.

The federal government did its arithmetic and concluded that it was spending far more on the territory than the territory was worth.

So it axed the commissioner’s job, reduced the territorial council to a rubber stamp for bureaucratic orders from Ottawa, and decimated the civil service.

“The population was so small, and so far away, that it was easy to forget about it,” Gates says.

The territory survived on stagnant gold prices until the early 1940s, when the building of the Alaska Highway (or “Alcan”) raised its national profile once again.

Gates’ next project is the collaborative book he and Kathy are writing about George Black, but he might see his way to writing something on his own about that next silent era between 1919 and 1941.

From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon in World War I will see official publication on April 9.

However, it will be launched in the Yukon from 6-8:00 this evening at The Old Fire Hall in Whitehorse.

In addition to readings by Gates, there will be live music by Grant Simpson and Shauna Jones.