Yukon who is who

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
Robert “Bob” Thorbjorn Porsild  (1898 – 1977)
	
Thorbjorn Porsild was born in Denmark to parents Joanne Kristine Nielsen and botanist Morten Pedersen Porsild, director of the Biological Institute of Greenland. Thorbjorn spent his childhood in Godhaven, Greenland and moved back to Denmark in 1914 to finish high school and start at the University of Copenhagen. His studies were cut short through illness and he did not receive a degree. In the winter of 1921/22, Erling Porsild and his older brother Thorbjorn applied to the Danish government for funds to conduct a relocation program where West Greenland families were to be moved to the uninhabited east coast. Erling took on the administration. Owing to a shortage of funds and some political intrigue the project was not a success. After this, Thorbjorn went to America and did a number of odd jobs in the Chicago area. He started to call himself Robert and that was soon shortened to Bob. Erling remained in Greenland and worked as a botanist before planning a two-year botanical expedition to Baffin Island.((Patricia Wendy Dathan, “The Reindeer Years: Contribution of A. Erling Porsild to the Continental Northwest, 1926 – 1935.” Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Department of Geography, McGill University, May 1988: 2-210.))  

Funding for the Baffin project did not go well and the brothers were in Chicago when the Canadian Government was looking for two botanists, skilled in taxonomy, botanical collecting, and vegetation surveying. They were needed in a program to introduce Alaskan reindeer into the Northwest Territories. In 1926, the brothers were given appointments with Erling as the botanist and Bob as his assistant. They returned to Ottawa in 1928 and Erling started writing up his interim report. Bob did not have a part in this, so he returned home to Greenland via Norway. He visited his parents, got engaged to Elly Rothe-Hansen, and returned to Ottawa in January 1930. He enjoyed collecting plant specimens but had no ambitions for a career in botany.((Patricia Wendy Dathan, “The Reindeer Years: Contribution of A. Erling Porsild to the Continental Northwest, 1926 – 1935.” Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Department of Geography, McGill University, May 1988: 2-210.))

The Porsild brothers were re-hired by the Canadian government to continue the reindeer project and from 1929 to 1935 they represented Canadian interests in the reindeer drive from Alaska to the Mackenzie Delta, and to prepare and establish a receiving station for the herd on arrival.  Bob  started work on the receiving station near Kittigazuit, opposite Richards Island, where the water was deep enough to land supplies. He and Matthew Hatting cut logs and by September 1930 had completed a house and a corral. Elly Rothe arrived from Denmark and they were married in the Anglican church in Aklavik. While Erling was in Norway to hire more Lapp reindeer herders, Bob was forced to rebuild the main building after a fire. He lost one of his men and nearly lost his wife when their dog team went through the ice.((Patricia Wendy Dathan, “The Reindeer Years: Contribution of A. Erling Porsild to the Continental Northwest, 1926 – 1935.” Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Department of Geography, McGill University, May 1988: 2-210.))

When Erling returned, he disapproved of the location Bob had chosen and the camp was eventually moved closer to Aklavik. A later argument over a different matter resulted in the brothers not speaking to one another for several months. The reindeer herd was having problems as well and the Lapps joined the herd to help move them along, while Bob undertook the transport of equipment and supplies. They met the herd about 20 miles west of Demarcation Point in early December 1932. For the rest of the winter Bob made round trips every seven days with a load of 600-700 pounds of food. He covered a total of 3,200 miles. A much-reduced herd reached Shingle Point on 7 March 1933. The animals had suffered from natural death and wolf kill. Erling wanted them to depart immediately but leader Andrew Bahr and Bob Porsild thought it was too late to make the delta crossing safely. The project delay caused tempers to flare, and Bob resigned from the Canadian Reindeer Project on the grounds of a salary reduction. It would be years before the brothers were reconciled.((Patricia Wendy Dathan, “The Reindeer Years: Contribution of A. Erling Porsild to the Continental Northwest, 1926 – 1935.” Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Department of Geography, McGill University, May 1988: 2-210.)) 
	
In 1935, Bob moved to the Yukon with his wife and two partners. They intended to stay for a year, trapping and prospecting in the Little Salmon area. When they discovered they didn’t have the needed equipment they settled at the mouth of the Sixtymile River and stayed there for four years.  In 1939, their oldest child was ten and they decided to move to a place where all four children could attend school. The family moved to Dawson and stayed there for three years. Bob was a carpenter in the capital for the first two years and then worked on the airport at Snag. He walked six miles to and from the construction site, even at 78 degrees below Fahrenheit.  Others were not so hardy, and the supply planes often left with one or two workers.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.))

When Porsild took an offered job in Whitehorse the family came upriver on the steamer //Keno// to join him. They rented a two-story house on Wickstrom Road and Bob went into partnership with Ollie Wickstrom selling wood. After he developed pneumonia, he changed his occupation to building boats before an offer from Standard Oil took him to the Canol Road where he built pumphouses until the war ended in 1945. He built a thirty-eight-foot boat on Marsh Lake for a local policeman and then contracted to build the lodge at Burwash Landing.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.))
	
Porsild built the Jacquot brothers' 64 by 32 foot log Burwash Landing Lodge by himself with only a little help from one man in securing the rafters. He started the first week of August and the building was finished in the middle of November. Porsild then spent the winter completing the interior finishes and the building was ready for occupancy by 1 June 1947. He charged the Jacquots $3,800 for his work. The next year he completed a number of jobs including constructing a bell tower for the old log church in Whitehorse.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.))

The next spring, Porsild and his family moved to Johnson’s Crossing and dismantled a number of military buildings. He had a contract worth $2,500 with Indian Affairs to move the material to Teslin where they had plans to build a residential school, but then decided not to go ahead with project.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.)) The Teslin public school was the integrated school in the Yukon. The Porsilds stayed at Johnson’s Crossing and dismantled a further seven or eight buildings with an idea of building a house in Whitehorse. When they could not get a lot for under $1,600, they decided to stay at Johnson’s Crossing. The government was starting to encourage businessmen to open lodges and restaurants along the Alaska Highway. The Porsilds reconditioned a couple of buildings they had purchased from War Assets and opened a small restaurant. Bob spent the winter dismantling three more pre-fabricated huts and moving them into Whitehorse where they sold for $100 each. When the Canol pipeline was sold to Canada, twelve men sent to dismantle it became regular costumers for the Porsilds at Johnson's Crossing, paying accommodation and three meals a day.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.))

Bob started building Porsild’s Hotel and Fishing Lodge at Johnson's Crossing in the autumn of 1948 and it was completed early the next summer. Bob and Elly ran the lodge until 1965 when they moved to Whitehorse and their second daughter [Ellen Davignon] and her husband took over the Johnson’s Crossing highway lodge.((Shirley Culpin, “I remember Whitehorse when I Had Less To Do.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 28 May 1975.))
Bob continued with his carpentry after he retired and, from 1966 to 1968, had a contract with the National Museums of Canada to collect, catalogue, and preserve wildflowers in central Yukon.((Keir Brooks Sterling, Crain K. Harris, Richard P. Harmond, George A. Cevasca, Richard A. Harmond, and Lorne F. Hammond, //Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists.// Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997: 637.))