Yukon who is who

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Robert Harris (1862 – 1922)
	
Robert Harris and his wife Keturah Whitney, grew up in Atherly, Ontario. They married in 1888. During the economic depression in 1893, Robert Harris and his brothers, Arthur and Thomas, moved west to work on the railway and then went to the salmon fishery in Vancouver. When Robert and Arthur heard about the Klondike Gold Rush, they left their jobs and families to travel north. They both were familiar with building and piloting small boats.((Jack C. Fisher. //Lead Pencil Miner: a search for Yukon gold.// La Jolla: Alasmar Books. 1998: vii-ix, x, 60, 67, 73, 88.))

They arrived in the summer of 1897 and worked as pilots at Miles Canyon. They charged $10-$20 for each party depending on the boat's size and load and could make $300 on a good day. Later Robert reported making $100 per day.  The brothers plied their trade for ten more days and earned a grand total of $2,475.00. On one of their trips they saw a boat trapped on the rocks. They tossed a line and rescued the boat and the occupants. The owner was fed up and sold his boat and provisions for $25. Now they each had a boat and Arthur left right away for Dawson and Robert soon followed.((Jack C. Fisher. //Lead Pencil Miner: a search for Yukon gold.// La Jolla: Alasmar Books. 1998: vii-ix, x, 60, 67, 73, 88.)) 

The fortune they brought back to Ontario seems to be based more on property sales than on mining although the brothers had several claims in their names and two of them were on Bonanza. They bought half of #80 below Discovery from H. McCullough who had purchased it from Clement Blytheman. The claim had been registered just 11 days after Skookum Jim found the gold. Ogilvie created a fraction at the edge of their claim and Robert staked in his name as #80b. Meanwhile Arthur staked a claim on Moosehide Creek and on a tributary of Orphir Creek he called Harris Creek. Robert staked #55 Above on Orphir. There is no evidence that they ever worked these claims. They continued to buy claims in order to resell them. Arthur registered claims on Deadwood, Hunker, Henderson, and Reindeer creeks. Roberts registered claims on Henderson, Dominion and Enslay creeks.((Jack C. Fisher. //Lead Pencil Miner: a search for Yukon gold.// La Jolla: Alasmar Books. 1998: vii-ix, x, 60, 67, 73, 88.))

Two days before Christmas, Robert began selling his claims. He wanted to return to his family in Vancouver. Leaving in mid-winter he travelled by dog team to the Chilkoot Pass. Two months after he returned home, Robert returned to the Yukon to sell his claims. He arrived back in June 1898 and managed to sell his fraction #80b on Bonanza for $8,000 to A. J. Mangold representing the Pioneer Trading Corporation, Ltd., a London based syndicate. Robert Harris invested his money in a new hotel in Atherly and he was going bankrupt in February 1914 when it burned to the ground. The value was placed at $10,000 with $1,500 contents but there was only $5,000 worth of insurance.  Robert died in 1922 from kidney failure.((Jack C. Fisher. //Lead Pencil Miner: a search for Yukon gold.// La Jolla: Alasmar Books. 1998: vii-ix, x, 60, 67, 73, 88.))