Yukon who is who

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Lucy Sanderson, nee Van Bibber (1926 – 2024)
	
Lucy Sanderson was born to Ira and Eliza Van Bibber at the family home at Mica Creek, about 1.5 km from the centre of present-day Pelly Crossing. The Van Bibber children helped in the garden and studied and learned. They trapped and hunted, and the family had a trappers’ cabin at Crooked Creek.((Leighann Chalykoff, “Growing Up Van Bibber.” Heritage Conversations, //Whats Up Yukon,// 5 July 2023.))

Lucy was too young to go when the older children set off on a raft for Dawson, loaded with dry fish and vegetables. Lucy took lessons with Mrs. Cowaret at Fort Selkirk for a few years during the winters. Her brother Dan took her to Minto and crossed to Fort Selkirk when the Yukon River froze. She and her younger siblings also studied in a bedroom of their homestead where brother Alex taught them to read and write.((Leighann Chalykoff, “Growing Up Van Bibber.” Heritage Conversations, //Whats Up Yukon,// 5 July 2023.))

When Lucy was 16, relatives visiting from West Virginia encouraged her to go to Dawson to find work. She bought a ticket on the paddlewheeler at Fort Selkirk and waved goodbye to her parents. In the 1940s, she was as an aide at St. Mary’s Hospital where she worked and lodged in the children’s ward. Wanting to become a nurse, Lucy studied in Regina, Saskatchewan until she left to care for her uncle in Alaska.((Leighann Chalykoff, “Growing Up Van Bibber.” Heritage Conversations, //Whats Up Yukon,// 5 July 2023.))

After her uncle died, Lucy moved to Calgary to take a secretarial course and worked at the City of Calgary until she got married. The family lived in Calgary for eight years before moving to Cranbrook. British Columbia. She raised four children and helped to support the family by selling her paintings. During the summers, she travelled to the Yukon where she and her sisters Linch and Kathleen would sell their paintings at roadhouses. She lived her dream of travelling to exotic places like the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica, and had recently moved back to the Yukon to be closer to friends and family.((Leighann Chalykoff, “Growing Up Van Bibber.” Heritage Conversations, //Whats Up Yukon,// 5 July 2023.))