Yukon who is who

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Danny Nowlan (1929 - 2011)
	
Danny Nowlan grew up in the bush in northern Saskatchewan. His mother and six siblings left him and his blind, illiterate father when he was nine. He trapped during the winter and made and sold moonshine during the summer. When the RCMP came looking, he hired on as a local scout for twenty-five cents a month but never turned himself in. At age fifteen he became a forest ranger, after lying about his age. During a smokejumper exercise he survived a free-fall drop into trees when his borrowed parachute didn’t open. He arrived in the Yukon in the late 1940s and became a camp foreman during the construction of the Alaska Highway, the owner of the White River Lodge, and a part-time prospector who thought nothing of months-long treks through the bush. .((Paul McKay and Mike Thomas, "Danny Nowlan (June 4, 1929- October 23, 2011)."  //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 28 October 2011.))

Nowlan was famous for telling tall stories about his many escapades, fuelled by whiskey and cigarettes. He settled on a 283-acre parcel of land north of Whitehorse to build a showcase for northern animals in natural surroundings. He accepted orphaned and injured animals and birds; some became permanent residents, and some were released after they healed. He developed the property over the next ten years. By the mid-1980s he was one of the North America’s premier falconers and with his second wife, Uli, he had state-of-the-art breeding facilities. Some of the young birds were sold to pay expenses and some went to restock depleted habitat. .((Paul McKay and Mike Thomas, "Danny Nowlan (June 4, 1929- October 23, 2011)."  //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 28 October 2011.))

Nowlan and others were arrested and charged with criminally conspiring to steal wild falcons from nests, launder them through the ranch aviaries, and then sell them for extremely high prices to foreign royalty. All of Nowlan’s falcons were confiscated. The trial was the longest and most expensive in Yukon history and, after three years, all of those named were acquitted on all charges. It took the Nowlans twelve years to recover financially, and only after a major tour bus company added them to their route through the Yukon. The business and animals were eventually sold to the Yukon Government and the Yukon Game Farm is now run by a non-profit group as the Yukon Wildlife Preserve.((Paul McKay and Mike Thomas, "Danny Nowlan (June 4, 1929- October 23, 2011)."  //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 28 October 2011.))