Yukon who is who

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Alfred Kirk "Shelly" Schellinger (1887 - 1969)
	
Alfred Schellinger was born in De Ruyter, in upstate New York.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 448-49.)) He received a degree in mining and geology from Stanford University in 1909. He came to Dawson in 1910 as a gold assayer for the Guggenheims’ Yukon Gold Co., predecessor the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp. Schellinger’s wife Elsie joined him in Dawson in 1913.((Dawson City Museum and Historical Society, reference files.))
	
In 1918, a rich silver vein at Keno was staked by Louis Beauvtte and the Guggenheims sent Shelly to report on it. He bought the claims for the company, operating in Keno as Keno Hill Ltd. and became the manager. Production reached $1,000,000 in the first year and an outsider from New York was sent to take over from the young geologist. He mismanaged the mine, closed it down, and Shelly wrote a damming report. About a year later the claims were taken over by Livingstone Wernecke and the Treadwell Yukon Company. Shelly was thereafter employed by that company as geologist, scout, and advisor for the camp.((H.S. Bostock, //Pack Horse Tracks – recollections of a geologists life in British Columbia and the Yukon 1924 – 1954.// Yukon Geoscience Forum, 1990: 88-89.))
	
Galena Hill was put into production by Treadwell Yukon, led by Wernerke and assisted by Schellinger and John Scott, from 1936 to 1941. Schellinger pioneered floatation milling at the Wernerke camp beginning in 1924 and this continued at the Elsa camp beginning in 1936. There was twenty years of almost continuous silver mining in the Mayo region and many times silver production placed the camp in the top producers in the world.((Dawson City Museum and Historical Society, reference files.))
Wernecke and Schellinger did aerial exploration and mapping in the Selwyn Mountains in 1929. Schellinger was an active photographer. He produced the first colour photographs of Dawson, circa 1912, on Lumier colour plates. These were later re-photographed on Kodachrome and processed onto Kodacolour prints without artificial colouring. He introduced the first home radio receiver about 1921/23.((Dawson City Museum and Historical Society, reference files.))
	
Schellinger worked at Keno Hill Mines until 1930 when he became chief engineer at Treadwell Yukon Mining Corporation in Mayo.((Yukon Archives, Alfred K. Schellinger biographical sketch, John Scott fonds.)) He retired to Palo Alto, California in 1941. He became a Second World War aircraft machinist and helicopter plant machinist.((Yukon Archives, 82/308; John Scott forward to accession 82/308.)) 

The Yukon Archives collection of his photographs covers the period from 1910 to 1941.((Yukon Archives, 82/308; John Scott forward to accession 82/308.)) He photographed the Guggenheim’s massive construction and mining projects using a 6.5" x 8.5", and an 8" x 10" plate camera as well as a 620mm roll film camera. His photography was probably part of his duties for the company, but he may have sold prints as well judging by the number of images in various collections. There are sixty lantern slides, 130 glass plate negatives, and 300 prints in various collections at the Dawson City Museum attributable to Schellinger. The Yukon Gold Company Collection at Library and Archives Canada are either his or E.A. Austin's.((Dawson City Museum and Historical Society, reference files.)) John Scott interviewed Schellinger and topics include mining and mineral exploration in the 1920s and 1930s and life in the Yukon during the first fifty years of the twentieth century.((Yukon Archives, John Scott fonds.)) 

Mount Schellinger was named for Alfred Kirk "Shelly" Schellinger in 1973.