Yukon who is who

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Hugh Day (1861 - 1916)
	
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.)) 
	
Hugh’s wife, Mary Day, gave birth to twin boys at Joe Ladue’s trading post at the mouth of the Sixtymile River in October 1894.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.)) In June 1896, Hugh and Mary were living on Miller Creek with their twin 16-month-old sons. They were mining with Al Day near Jack and Emilie Tremblay. Mary took sick and the family came to Forty Mile at the end of May to find treatment. She died on June 13 of pneumonia at age 38 and is buried at Forty Mile.((Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The Life and Times of Joe Ladue, Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 2005: 121.)) Hugh decided to take his two-year-old boys, Joseph and Bernard, to live with their mother’s family in Minneapolis. He carried the boys on his back over the Chilkat Trail in a blizzard. On November 22nd, Day was back in Juneau collecting the mail to carry to Circle, Alaska. He arrived at Circle in February 1897 and brought the news of the gold strike on Bonanza Creek in the KLondike.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019; “Two children’s long trip.” //New York Times// (New York), November 1896.)) 
	
This was the first official mail run over that route. Day passed the mouth of the Klondike and knew about the gold discovery on Bonanza Creek, but he was given no letters to confirm his story. When Arthur Walden talked to Day about 100 miles from Circle, Day had been unable to replenish his food supply at Forty Mile. Walden had enough for two, so they travelled together into Circle. Day went into town first to preserve his dignity, but no one believed him until Walden arrived with some letters from the Klondike miners.((Arthur T. Walden, //A Dog Puncher on the Yukon.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Classics reprinted from Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1928: 76-77.)) Day was back in Juneau by early April 1897, carrying nine kilograms of outbound mail. He was in Nanaimo in mid-February 1898, on his way out to visit his twin boys.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.))   
	
Hugh and Al mined Claims No. 30 and No. 31 Below Bonanza Discovery and Claim No. 11 on Bear Creek. They also made an application for land that became the Day Addition to the Harper and Ladue Townsite.((Klondike Nugget (Dawson), Anniversary Number, November 1, 1899 in Ed and Star Jones, All that Glitters, 2005: 286.)) In 1899 they were the majority owners of Claim No. 30 on Bonanza Creek mine where they employed twenty-four men in three daily eight-hour shifts. They also mined for a number of years on Dominion Creek. Hugh lost his leg in a mining accident and relocated to Douglas, Alaska. In 1911, he lost his property to a fire that burned the settlement. He rebuilt and later moved to Tenakee Springs, Alaska.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.)) 

Hugh Day died in Douglas, Alaska.((//Douglas Island News// (Douglas), 6 January 1915 in Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The Life and Times of Joe Ladue, Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 2005: 286, footnote 356.)) His son Joseph fought in, and survived, both world wars.((Michael Gates, “The Remarkable story of Hugh Day.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2019.))