Yukon who is who

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Aimé Renold “Happy” LePage (1905 - 1973)
	
Happy LePage was born in Gorham, New Hampshire. He arrived in the Yukon from Alberta in the late 1920s. In 1926, he worked for TC Richards and W.L. Phelps as a stage driver on the overland mail route to Dawson City. During the same year, he worked as a winter labourer on the Overland Trail. During the summer he joined the crew of the steamer //Casca// as a deck hand. In 1928, he returned to Alberta to marry Pauline. They moved north and settled at the Rink Rapids wood camp where LePage cut and stacked wood to sell to British Yukon Navigation (BYN) steamers during the summer. LePage purchased a wood camp at Yukon Crossing in 1929 and Pauline ran the roadhouse there. Over the next fifteen years, LePage added wood camps at Lake View [below Little Salmon River] (mid-1930s), Lower Yukon Crossing (1936), Carmacks, and Myer's Bluff (1944/45). They also managed a wood camp on the Stewart River for a brief time in the late 1940s. Most of the woodcutters were First Nation.  Happy had a bulldozer and a large truck that he modified with tracks and skis.((Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame Award Ceremony handout. Information supplied by Phyllis Simpson, daughter of Happy and Pauline LePage.))

Pauline and the children moved into Whitehorse in [1934] so daughter Phyllis could go to school. Happy always returned to town for Christmas. In 1937, he bought the riverboat //Ruby// as their summer home and they travelled between wood camps. LePage’s experience building a small air strip enabled him to get a contract supervising the upgrading and maintenance of the Whitehorse airport in the early 1940s. He was involved in the construction of the Aishihik and Braeburn airstrips. In the early 1950s, he supervised the building of the Carmacks Bridge on the newly built Mayo Road. In 1955, the LePages retired from the wood camps and river life and LePage started up a regional trucking company. By 1960, Happy owned the first pay parking lot in Whitehorse (2nd and Steele) and a few years later they started a car wash. They retired in the mid-1960s after forty years running independent businesses. The LePage's contribution to the Yukon’s development is acknowledged through LePage Park in downtown Whitehorse, the Woodcutter Range, and LePage Mountain near Yukon Crossing. The LePages were awarded the Transportation Pioneer Award in 2006.((Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame Award Ceremony handout. Information supplied by Phyllis Simpson, daughter of Happy and Pauline LePage.)) 

Pauline and Rose LePage were interviewed by Cal Waddington for Parks and Historic Sites, July - September 1978. Yukon River Aural History Project. ((Yukon Archives, Acc # 81/32))