Yukon who is who

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George Patton MacKenzie (1873 - 1953)
	
George MacKenzie was born in Malagash, Nova Scotia. He attended the Nova Scotia Normal School in Truro and graduated as a teacher in 1895. He was teaching at Wallace Bridge when he heard news of the Klondike strike. He and a friend, Jim McKinnon, set out in 1897 and attempted the Stikine River and Teslin Trail route north before crossing the mountains on the White Pass or Chilkoot trail. George arrived in Dawson in the summer of 1898. It appears that he worked for the local newspapers as well as MacLennan’s drygoods store before successfully applying for the position of principle at Dawson’s first public school in August 1900.((Kathy Drew-Smith, //The Man from Malagash.// Blue River Press, 2022: 22-27.))
	
The law at the time restricted public servants from mining. MacKenzie resigned from his teaching position in 1903 and started a company called the Duncan Creek Gold Mine. In October 1904, George, W.P. [probably brother W.R.] MacKenzie, Mr. Corkery, and others were the owners of Discovery, and claims No. 1 and No. 2 on Duncan Creek in the Mayo mining district.((Kathy Drew-Smith, //The Man from Malagash.// Blue River Press, 2022: 36-37.))
	
In March 1904, George MacKenzie was hired as a clerk in the assistant Gold Commissioner’s office and received the pay rate for a married man. F.X. Gosslin was let go during a major clean-up of the office and, in 1912, George was appointed Gold Commissioner and crown timber and land agent under Commissioner George Black. James A. MacKinnon filled George’s old job in the office.((Kathy Drew-Smith, //The Man from Malagash.// Blue River Press, 2022: 41.))
	
In 1918, the federal government cut the Yukon’s funding by forty percent and abolished the positions of Commissioner and Administrator. In April, Gold Commissioner George Mackenzie assumed all the responsibilities of the abolished offices as well as keeping his prior responsibilities. He became Yukon’s Chief Executive Officer under the Yukon Act while keeping his existing title. These were difficult times in the Yukon with high unemployment and an influenza epidemic that hit the First Nation communities very hard. The federal government had planned on abolishing the Yukon Council but the budding silver boom in the Mayo region gave some ammunition to Mackenzie who attended meetings in Ottawa during the winter of 1919. He and MP Alfred Thompson successfully advocated for increased grants to support the district and the Yukon Act was amended to allow a three-member wholly elected body to the Yukon Council. At that time, the franchise was extended to men and women not of indigenous descent. MacKenzie hosted the Governor General and O.S. Finnie, the Director of Northern Affairs in Ottawa, who visited the Yukon in the summer of 1922 when the population was 1,500 people.((Linda Johnson, //At the Heart of Gold: The Yukon Commissioner’s Office 1898-2010.// Legislative Assembly of the Yukon, 2012: 42-46.)) 

Finnie returned to Ottawa to order the closure of the Post Office and other federal buildings. During prohibition liquor sales were important to the Yukon economy. Mackenzie did not get permission from Ottawa on a special arrangement he had with Alaska customs officials who permitted liquor to be shipped by train from Skagway. Mackenzie was informed in 1924 that he would have to assume more responsibilities without an increase in pay, and he was recalled to Ottawa when he protested. Percy Reid was appointed as the Acting Gold Commissioner.((Linda Johnson, //At the Heart of Gold: The Yukon Commissioner’s Office 1898-2010.// Legislative Assembly of the Yukon, 2012: 42-46.))
	
After his Yukon experience, Mackenzie became Commander of Eastern Arctic Explorations for the Federal government.  He supervised expeditions to the Arctic which helped consolidate Canada's position in the north.  The Yukon Archives has files related to the career of George P. MacKenzie as Gold Commissioner in the Yukon and as Commander of Eastern Arctic Explorations for the Federal government.  They include MacKenzie's diaries and reports of Arctic expeditions, speeches, despatches, summary reports of the RCMP, clippings, articles and correspondence. Original, Photocopy, Transcript, n.d., 1896-1975, 0.090 m. (Vol. l).((Yukon Archives manuscript listing.))