Yukon who is who

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George Ortell (1872 - 1943)
	
George Ortell was born in Iowa. He was orphaned at a young age and he and his five siblings were raised by their eldest sister Emma. He heard rumours about gold being found in the Yukon and came north in 1895. He developed excellent bush skills and settled in the Mayo region to trap and prospect. In 1905, geologist Joseph Keele hired him to help map the upper Stewart River area. Ortell remained single after his sister refused to allow him to marry a First Nation woman.((Delores Smith, “Reclusive Ortell had many friends.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 13 December 1995.))
	
In the spring of 1907, Dominion Land Surveyor Joseph Keele engaged Ortell, R.B. Riddell, Robert Henderson, and Jim Christie to help him explore the headwaters of the Pelly, Ross, and Gravel rivers and the region from the Pelly to the Mackenzie River. Ortell returned to Dawson in the fall of 1907 travelling from the winter quarters with specimens and letters.((J. Keele, "Explorations on the Pelly, Ross and Gravel rivers, in the Yukon and Northwest Territories." Sessional Paper No 28. Geological Survey, Department of Mines, 1909: 33.)) 
	
Over the years Ortell became more reclusive and eccentric. He would skin a moose without wearing clothes to save on laundry and when asked for dinner, he would bring his own unwashed cutlery. He had many friends who watched out for him as he aged.((Delores Smith, "More Mad Trappers." //The Yukoner Magazine,// No 10. January 1999: 23-24.)) 
	
In February 1943, Ortell was living on his claim at Johnson Creek, a tributary of the McQuesten River. He mined during the summer and trapped in the winter. Ortell found he had no flour to make his regular hotcakes and bacon breakfast. A friend had given him a key to the Middlecoff camp warehouse and told him to help himself if he needed something during the winter. It was a mile and half away over a mountain and it was sixty-one below zero Fahrenheit. He got to the camp but the lock was frozen, so he went on to Joe Lasky’s cabin nearby. By that time his hands were badly frost-bitten. Lasky set out for medical help from Mayo, twenty-five miles away, at minus sixty-five. Ortell waited two days and thinking Lasky might be in trouble he set out for the roadhouse at Minto Bridge, ten miles away. The frame of his snowshoe broke after he had covered three-quarters of the distance. The snow was deep, and he crawled until he was exhausted, and then he stepped off the trail and buried his legs up to his knees in snow. Lasky, dog musher Dick Kimbel, and RCMP officer Bud D’Easum found him the next day around noon, standing in place and almost frozen solid. He was flown from Mayo to the hospital at Dawson where Doctor Allan Duncan had to amputate both his legs and some of his fingers. The old timer died within two weeks of the operation.((Archie Gillespie, “Night of Travail on a Yukon Trail.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 24 April 1975.))
	
Mount Ortell, Ortell Lake, and Ortell’s Crossing on the upper Stewart River all bear his name, an almost unique honour for an American citizen in Canada.((Delores Smith, “Reclusive Ortell had many friends.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 13 December 1995.))