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 Donald Emerson Taylor (1933 - 2012)
-Don Taylor was born in Ontario and was raised by adoptive parents. He went to Calgary for a summer job, moved on to work as a ranch hand in British Columbia, and arrived in Whitehorse in 1949. Alex Van Bibber took him under his wing for the first years. Taylor went on to prospecting and spent eleven years staking claims for other companies.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.))
+Don Taylor was born in Ontario and raised by adoptive parents.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.)) He finished his year at Lakefield College in 1949 and went on a summer holiday arranged by his parents to work for a month at a Calgary biscuit company and then spend a month as a guest at a dude ranch. He never went back to school. He worked at ranches in Alberta and British Columbia and then headed north to Whitehorse in the spring of 1950.((Don Taylor, "My Yukon Journey" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 171-177.))
-Taylor was first elected as an MLA from Watson Lake in 1961, and he was appointed Speaker of the Assembly in 1974. He served six consecutive terms, twenty-four years, until the last term ended in 1985. In 2002 he went from a loyal party member to an opponent during Fentie’s government when he was told to vacate his home and business at Stewart Lake and relocate 100 feet back from the water. Taylor was running a successful wilderness lodge and fishing camp, although business declined when jet service to Watson Lake was discontinued in the 1990s.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.))
+Taylor was hired by TC Richards and for three months he looked after a log cabin, a few greenhouses, and the log pool at the Takhini hot springs. He prospected later in the summer and then headed back to Whitehorse to do small jobs for the winter. He lived the cold months on the top floor of Berrigan's three-story log cabin.((Don Taylor, "My Yukon Journey" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 171-177.))
-In 1979 Taylor started a radio program, the “Daily Sked,” to connect with northern bush dwellers and trappers. He relayed messages, weather reports, and news. A few times his program helped to rescue trappers who needed an airlift. Taylor had to move into Whitehorse in 2010 with the retirement of the Angus Air ski plane pilot, and Taylor’s need for cancer treatments in Vancouver.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.))
+In 1951, Taylor worked at Louis Engle's placer mine on Livingstone Creek in exchange for 25% of the cleanup. Louis had also recruited Ralph Clethero. After a huge amount of effort and little gold, Taylor left his partners and made his way to the Rancheria River where he took up prospecting again. He returned to Whitehorse in the fall of 1951 and spent the winter with occasional work staking claims and learning more about prospecting from books and experienced prospectors. He returned to the Rancheria in the spring of 1952 and spent the summer there and around Watson Lake and the Upper Liard River. That fall he found work at the Whitehorse Army #14 Company Ordinance Warehouse.((Don Taylor, "My Yukon Journey" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 171-177.))
+In the spring of 1953, Taylor and partner Andy Anderson joined a staking rush to a nickel discovery at White River. They optioned their group of claims to Prospector Airways for $80,000 and managed to get a down payment of $4,000 which was split four ways. The company later dropped the option. Taylor then got a job on the construction of the Donjek Bridge, driving an old military dump truck, and then he and Andy went prospecting again. Taylor camped for the spring of 1954 on the shores of Kathleen Lake and then took a job on the White River as an assistant park warden under Joe Langevin from Haines Junction. The next summer he returned to the warden service, this time at Watson Lake as assistant to Teslin-based Chief Warden Frank Bailey. Taylor liked Watson Lake and settled there.((Don Taylor, "My Yukon Journey" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 171-177.))
+Don Taylor was first elected as an MLA from Watson Lake in 1961, and he was appointed Speaker of the Assembly in 1974. He served six consecutive terms, twenty-four years, until the last term ended in 1985.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.)) Don insisted on changing the name of the Territorial Council to Legislative Assembly.((Don Taylor, "My Yukon Journey" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 171-177.))
+In 2002, Don went from a loyal party member to an opponent during Fentie’s government when he was told to vacate his home and business at Stewart Lake and relocate 100 feet back from the water. Taylor was running a successful wilderness lodge and fishing camp, although business declined when jet service to Watson Lake was discontinued in the 1990s.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.))
+In 1979, Taylor started a radio program, //Daily Sked,// to connect with northern bush dwellers and trappers. He relayed messages, weather reports, and news. A few times his program helped to rescue trappers who needed an airlift. Taylor had to move into Whitehorse in 2010 with the retirement of the Angus Air ski plane pilot, and Taylor’s need for cancer treatments in Vancouver.((Kevin Shackell, “Ailing advocate is in the fight of his life.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 29 October 2010.))
 After Taylor was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2012, he moved back to Watson Lake where he started a lively blog on government scandals and misdeeds. He continued his radio broadcasts for the trapping community and died about a month before the programs would have reached a thirty-third anniversary.((Kevin Shackell, "Cancer claims political pioneer Don Taylor." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 12 October 2012.))