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.
Violet Storer, nee Laberge (d. 2007)
	
Violet Storer was born [near Little River,] on the Teslin River, to parents Jenny and Bill Laberge.(("Violet Lebarge Storer: A Historian of the Yukon." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 4 May 2007.)) Her family spent most winters at Winter Crossing, and they hunted around Livingstone Creek. Eventually they moved to Lake Laberge when Violet was very young, and her sister and brother went from there to the school in Carcross.((Canyon City Oral History. Sweeny Scurvey interview with Violet Storer, 7 August 1995.)) Violet taught herself to read and write with the help of some nurses when she stayed in the hospital as a child. She was turned away from the public schools and protected from the residential schools by her parents, but she followed a course of life-long learning.(("Violet Lebarge Storer: A Historian of the Yukon." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 4 May 2007.))
	
The family moved to Whitehorse near the rapids to a place called Yard Limits, and they stayed there for many years. They used to go hunting for winter food all the way to McClintock. Her father and Johnny Joe used to hunt for moose. Around September the family would get home to the rapids. They would raft all the way from McClintock by Marsh Lake and down the Lewes River to Wigan. From there they would walk home. Violet's mother told her that everybody lived near the rapids when she was a child. They lived there because they used to gaff salmon in the summer, all the way down to Lake Laberge. Their favourite place was the rapids because they could gaff the salmon and make salmon nets. In the summertime they would go to Fiftymile.  Violet's father had a fish net right where the //SS Klondike// sits just across the river there, where the eddy is.((Canyon City Oral History. Sweeny Scurvey interview with Violet Storer, 7 August 1995.))

When white people started coming through Miles Canyon during the gold rush, some of them would get swamped in the whirlpool in the canyon. Violet's grandfather said he would take the boat through for them. He hauled the boat through the canyon by rope. They paid him when he got to the place where the Robert Campbell bridge is now. He stopped there and they reloaded and paid him some money. Violet's grandfather didn't know what money was so he said he would rather have something to eat. So he got flour, and sugar although he wasn’t sure what that was. They taught him to drink tea. He got a job burying the drowned people from the canyon and put in the crosses. There were crosses all the way down to Lake Laberge. One family that drowned was a husband and wife and three children.((Canyon City Oral History. Sweeny Scurvey interview with Violet Storer, 7 August 1995.)) 

Violet was Tagish Kwan and was fluent in Tagish, Tlingit, Southern Tutchone, Northern Tutchone, and English. She was involved in many cultural research projects on languages, land use, travel and cultural traditions. In 1993, Violet was involved in the Kwanlin Dün First Nation History Project and she, Ray Marnoch, and Diane Smith interviewed six elders. Violet translated the Southern Tutchone recordings which are held by the Yukon Archives for reference and research purposes. Violet Storer and May Hume received a joint Yukon Historical & Museums Association Heritage Award in 1994.((YHMA “Previous Recipients.” 2018 website: https://www.heritageyukon.ca/programs/heritage-awards/previous-recipients))