| Hugh Day was born in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. When he was seventeen, Hugh sustained a head injury during a street fight, and this would affect him in old age. Brothers Hugh and Al prospected and were successful miners in the Stikine River area of British Columbia in the early 1880s. They travelled into the Yukon River Basin in 1884 and came out to presumably Juneau that fall.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 9 May 2019.)) In 1885, they and partner Isaac Powers, outfitted in Juneau for another trip. They planned to winter on the Stewart River and travelled over the Chilkoot Pass with George Carmack and his partners Hugh Donahue, J.V. Dawson, and D. Foley.((James Albert Johnson, //Carmack of the Klondike.// Seattle and Ganges, BC: Epicenter Press and Horsdal & Schubart, 1990: 24-25.)) They spent the winter of 1885/86 at Fort Reliance.((Donald W. Clark, //Fort Reliance, Yukon: An Archaeological Assessment.// Mercury Series Archaeological Survey of Canada. Paper 150. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilisation, 1995: 32.)) They were rocking on a bar twelve miles up the Stewart when the steamer New Racket came past with Jack McQuesten and Thomas Boswell.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 362.)) At some point in 1886, they worked at Joe Ladue’s trading post at the mouth of the Sixtymile River.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 9 May 2019.)) | Hugh Day was born in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. When he was seventeen, Hugh sustained a head injury during a street fight, and this would affect him in old age. Brothers Hugh and Al prospected and were successful miners in the Stikine River area of British Columbia in the early 1880s. They travelled into the Yukon River Basin in 1884 and came out to presumably Juneau that fall.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 9 May 2019.)) In 1885, they and partner Isaac Powers, outfitted in Juneau for another trip. They planned to winter on the Stewart River and travelled over the Chilkoot Pass with George Carmack and his partners Hugh Donahue, J.V. Dawson, and D. Foley.((James Albert Johnson, //Carmack of the Klondike.// Seattle and Ganges, BC: Epicenter Press and Horsdal & Schubart, 1990: 24-25.)) They spent the winter of 1885/86 at Fort Reliance.((Donald W. Clark, //Fort Reliance, Yukon: An Archaeological Assessment.// Mercury Series Archaeological Survey of Canada. Paper 150. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilisation, 1995: 32.)) In the spring of 1885, Densmore, John Hughes, Ike Powers, Steven Custer, and Al and Hugh Day were rocking on a bar twelve miles up the Stewart River when Jack McQuesten came past with the //New Racket// taking Thomas Boswell upriver. McQuesten told them about the good results further upstream on the Stewart and offered them a ride if they would work on the boat. Powers, Custer and the Day brothers took him up on the offer, but Densmore and Hughes declined having decided to leave the Stewart River.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 23, 26-7.)) At some point in 1886, they worked at Joe Ladue’s trading post at the mouth of the Sixtymile River.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 9 May 2019.)) |
| They continued to prospect in the Yukon Basin for the next ten years. In 1893 the Days prospected along the Stewart River and then returned to Juneau for the winter. That year they met and married two French Canadian girls and the men and their wives returned to the Yukon the following summer. They stopped at Joe Ladue’s trading post at the mouth of the Sixtymile River and worked in the sawmill, and then Hugh and his wife Mary moved up the Sixtymile River.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.)) The Days had some success rocking the bars on Independence Creek in 1893.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 362.)) | They continued to prospect in the Yukon Basin for the next ten years. In 1893 the Days prospected along the Stewart River and then returned to Juneau for the winter. That year they met and married two French Canadian girls and the men and their wives returned to the Yukon the following summer. They stopped at Joe Ladue’s trading post at the mouth of the Sixtymile River and worked in the sawmill, and then Hugh and his wife Mary moved up the Sixtymile River.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.)) The Days had some success rocking the bars on Independence Creek in 1893.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 362.)) |
