Yukon who is who

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Benjamin Totty (d. 1945)
	
Benjamin Totty was an Anglican missionary who arrived from England via the Yukon River in 1892. Bishop Bompas arrived at Fort Yukon in the spring and met Mrs. Bompas, returning from England with Reverend T. H. and Mrs. Canham, the Reverend G. C. and Mrs. Wallis, and Mr. Totty. It was arranged that Bompas and Totty would live at Forty Mile, Mr. and Mrs. Canham would go to Fort Selkirk, and Mr. Wallis and his new bride would go to Rampart House.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.))

When Rev. Wallis and his wife left Rampart House, after a little less than a year, Totty moved to Rampart to take their place and he spent the winter of 1893 there.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.)) He stayed until the Canhams arrived to take over in the summer of 1894.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 40-41.)) Totty then took Reverend Canham’s place at Fort Selkirk.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html)) Totty was ordained a priest in 1894.((Yukon Archives, Victoria Faulkner, 83/50 MSS 137 f.17.)) 
	
Reverend Totty either came north with an ear infection, or developed one soon after his arrival, and the resultant deafness apparently made him less effective, or at least less willing to travel the country as Bompas did.((Ken S. Coates, //Best Left as Indians.// Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991: 77, 119-120.)) Al Mayo and his family lived at Forty Mile from around 1888 into the early 1890s. Mayo’s daughter, Selina, was about sixteen in 1895.((University of Alaska, “Notes: Mayo Family.” Project Jukebox, 2019 website: http://jukebox.uaf.edu/Rampart/html/mayon.htm)) She fell in love with a miner that her father and Bishop Bompas considered inappropriate. Totty needed a wife, and Mayo and Bompas arranged for Selina to marry him, without much enthusiasm from either party.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 233.)) Selina proved invaluable to her husband’s work as she spoke the Hän and Gwich’in languages and he had trouble hearing the words.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 34.))
	
Totty may have remained at Forty Mile after his marriage. He was in charge, with the Bishop, in 1897. Children were in attendance at the school and a large number of First Nation congregants attended regular services.((“Letter from the Right Reverend Bishop Bompas.” Fort Yukon, 4 August 1897. Yukon Archives, PAM 1898-130.))	
	
In 1898, Totty succeeded Frederick Flewelling at Moosehide. Flewelling had been ministering [in the Dawson area] from 1896 to 1898.((Manuscript "Summery of the Anglican Church in Yukon" by Archdeacon Allan Haldenby of Dawson in 1957 and updated by Lee Sax and Bishop Ronald Ferris in 1991.)) Bishop Bompas was concerned about the health of his congregation during the gold rush and he moved the seat of his diocese from Forty Mile to Moosehide and he stayed there for the winter of 1899/1900.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 145-146.)) Bompas was established in Carcross by 1900.((Craig Mishler and William E. Simone, //Han People of the River.// University of Alaska press, 2004: 11.))
	
In 1907, Totty requested whitewash and two brushes to disinfect the cabins of those in Moosehide who had contracted tuberculosis. Bishop Stringer visited the community in 1913, prepared to lecture on the benefits of cleanliness, and was surprised to find the community cleaner than Dawson.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 151-52.))
	
In 1908, Totty was preparing two First Nation catechists, Joseph Kunizzi and Amos Njootli, for deacon's orders. Mr. Field was a lay reader at Forty Mile under Totty’s direction.(("Diocese of Yukon." //The New Era,// Vol. VI, No. 4, April 1908.))  Jonathan Wood served as a catechist in Moosehide and taught at the day school. When he moved to Fort Selkirk in 1916, his son Jimmy Wood took over teaching in the school whenever Totty was away. When Jonathan Wood came back to Moosehide in 1918, his pay was at the discretion of Totty whenever Totty had him doing occasional work for the mission.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 153, 158-161.)) 

Reverend Totty travelled to First Nations camps at McQuesten and Mayo in late January 1911. He was guided by Peter who also acted as a Northern Tutchone language translator.((”On trip to McQuesten.” //Dawson Daily News// (Dawson), January 24, 1911.)) He returned to Moosehide in mid-February and reported he met about sixty First Nation people gathered at Mayo. He killed a moose while he was on the trip.((“Totty back from trip to Mayo.” //Dawson Daily News// (Dawson). 15 February 1911.))
	
Julius Kendi worked at the mission in 1921 and noted that with all his mission work he was unable to have a large cache of fish and meat. Richard Martin was the catechist at Moosehide in the 1920s and was ordained. While he was at Moosehide he preached every second Sunday and held school and bible class in the mornings. He also acted as a translator for Totty.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 153, 158-161.))
	
Reverend Totty was at Moosehide until 1926, except for furloughs when Hawksley and A.C. Field relieved him. He retired after thirty-five years of Yukon service in 1927.((Manuscript "Summery of the Anglican Church in Yukon" by Archdeacon Allan Haldenby of Dawson in 1957 and updated by Lee Sax and Bishop Ronald Ferris in 1991.))