In my 48 years at the Whitehorse Star, I have seen six editors and countless reporters, advertising staff members, production personnel and paper boys and girls pass through our doors.

I’ve been at the Star since 1972, and have gone through a few economic booms and busts over the years. Spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, this is another one.

As far as surviving goes, it’s been rough, but we’re doing our best under the circumstances, and, during this time, so is everyone else.

I commend all of the employees at the Star for making it possible to stay safe at their jobs while continuing to put the newspaper on the street. They’ve all handled the COVID situation very well.

Even during the bad times, the Whitehorse Star has never missed publishing a newspaper.

Many readers, especially recent arrivals to the territory, may not be aware of the paper’s rich history – much of it as the sole gatherer of the news in the territory.

The Star was founded in 1899 by the publisher of the Bennett Sun, Percy Scharshmidt.

Upon the completion of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway from Carcross to Whitehorse, he was prompted to move to Whitehorse, which became the transportation hub of the North.

Although he published both the Star and the Sun at the same time, the Sun finally ceased to exist.

There’s so much history in the Whitehorse Star’s pages for the last 120 years, I can’t fit it all in here and make it readable, so here’s a brief run down of the major highlights.

In the early days, the news consisted of the construction of the Alaska Highway, ending in 1942, the 1918 sinking of Princess Sophia, the Lost Patrol, the first aircraft, the Queen of the North, commercial flying pioneer Clyde Wann, Yukoners entering the First and Second World Wars, the plane crash of Wiley Post and Will Rogers.

Whitehorse became the capital of the Yukon in 1953, the first city council was elected, and Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1959.

(Not to be outdone, Princess Anne came in 1982; Prince Charles in 2001 and Prince William and Duchess Kate in 2016.)

There was the world-famous airplane crash of Helen Klaben and Ralph Flores, who survived in the bush for 49 days in 1963, and Robert Kennedy’s 1965 climb up Mount Kennedy in honour of his brother John, the assassinated U.S. president.

There was Pierre Trudeau’s visit in 1980, the sternwheelers burning to the ground in the old Shipyards area of Whitehorse in 1974, John Diefenbaker’s visit, the Dempster Highway and the Skagway Roads being built.

We documented the disastrous flood of 1979 in Dawson City.

Several horrifying fires happened in the 1980s and ’90s, including the SS Tutshi sternwheeler in Carcross 30 years ago next Saturday; the SAAN store at Second Avenue and Ogilvy Street in 1991; the historic Trans North hangars’ demise; the Watson Lake forest fire of 1982 that killed a water bomber pilot; and the loss of much of the town’s downtown area to fire in the mid-’90s.

Yukoners lost important leaders in the last several decades, including Indigenous leaders/elders Johnny Johns, Elijah Smith, Harry Allen, Mike Smith, Robert Hager, Ray Jackson, Joe Linklater, Angela Sydney and Johnny Joe.

We also lost former MP Erik Nielsen, ex-mayors Don Branigan and Flo Whyard (a former Star editor), retired mayor and senator Paul Lucier, retired government leaders/premiers Chris Pearson, John Ostashek and Dennis Fentie, and ex-NDP leader Todd Hardy in 2010.

Bishop Tom Lobsinger died in a shocking plane crash north of Whitehorse 20 years ago. And the lives of the legendary Pierre Berton and artist Ted Harrison also passed into the history.

The past was revisited by Klaben and later Flores’ children ... all documented in the Star’s pages.

The federal government gave the territory a new administration building in 1976, and the city’s airport welcomed a new, modern terminal in 1986.

Such major institutions as the old Federal Building and Whitehorse General Hospital were replaced with new structures, as was F.H. Collins Secondary School, whose original campus opened in 1963.

What was once the old Whitehorse Vocational and Technical Training School on the edge of Riverdale 57 years ago is now a full-fledged university – near the acclaimed Yukon Arts Centre.

Dilapidated buildings and shacks gave way to a revitalized waterfront, including the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, and old houses in the downtown area surrendered their ground to a variety of condo towers, forever altering the area’s flavour.

Record rains in the summer of 1988 played havoc with the Alaska Highway in terms of major washouts; in 2012, a washed-out highway near Rancheria left local grocery shelves and freezers bare of perishables as supply trucks were stalled for several days.

We were there when the Haeckel Hill forest fire almost led to the city’s complete evacation in 1991, and for the major Fox Lake-area inferno of 1998.

The Star recorded the turmoil of Sept. 11, 2001 after it was initially feared that a Korean Airlines jet had been hijacked to Whitehorse.

The numbers and sizes of governments have exploded in the last generation, with a vast sector of the territory’s labour force now employed by various levels of government as more responsibilities have been devolved to the North.

Compared to a typical capital budget worth $29 million in the 1980s, the territory now enjoys an annual budget in the $1.6-billion range, sustaining a mere 43,000 people.

With heavy hearts, we reported on the shocking 2012 deaths of five people in their rented home on Centennial Street after they were slowly poisoned by the heating system.

Many anniversaries were attended in the ’80s and ’90s, including the Alaska Highway (1992), the City of Whitehorse, the White Pass and Yukon Route (2000), the RCMP, and the Yukon pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver.

The first Yukon Quest began in 1984, the Yukon’s Audrey McLaughlin became the leader of the federal NDP in 1989 and historic land claims agreements were signed in 1993.

The Cyprus Anvil Mining Corp. mine shut down in 1982, along with the Whitehorse Copper Mine, the United Keno Hill silver mines, and White Pass service between Whitehorse and Skagway.

The economy went with it, and the Star went from daily to three times a week.

But in 1985, with new equipment, the Star went daily again for the subsequent 35 years.

In 2019, the economy forced us to go to three times a week again.

The memories I’ve shared in this limited space would amount to pouring a thimble of ink into a veritable barrel. No doubt, readers will recall many other important events.

There have been many ups and downs throughout the years. The Star has seen them all – and never missed a publication day.

On Saturday, we will officially turn 120 years old.

I extend our many thanks to our readers and advertisers who have made it possible through the years, decades, generations and three numerical centuries for the Star to continue to be here.

Editor Jim Butler, a 39-year Star employee, provided some of the content for this article.

By JACKIE PIERCE
Star Publisher