Yukon who is who

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Jim Cortino
	
Jim Cortino and his family moved from Chicago to the Yukon in 1963. Jim had been up before on hunting trips and he decided to build a lodge on Dezadeash Lake. It was for paying hunters and fishermen, and a vacation place for his family. Jim and his wife Beula built a luxurious H-shaped lodge of cedar logs ten miles down the Haines Road from the Beloud Post. They put in a large fireplace guarded by a stuffed albino moose shot by Jim's friend and big game outfitter Alex Van Bibber. They had a dock with rental boats, and horses and sled dogs to rent. A caretaker was hired for the winter when they returned to Chicago to spell off Jim's brother in running their business there. The lodge was finished in 1968. In 1971, Chuck Keen of Alaska Pictures made a movie based on the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River. Jim and Buela Cortino offered their lodge as a base for the crews and Gordon Yardley who was scouting out locations for shooting. The movie called //Challenge to be Free// had Mike Mazurki playing the trapper and Alex Van Bibber and Bob McKinnon had parts in the movie. Gordon had a part as well, and his son Ted was assistant photographer and production manager. Jimmy Kane played the Indigenous scout who planned the strategy of the epic chase. Cortino put the lodge up for sale in 1974.((Joyce Yardley, //Crazy Cooks and Gold Miners.// Surrey BC: Hancock House Publishers Ltd. 1993: 132-34, 144, 150, 169-70, 174.))