Yukon who is who

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Clyde G. Wann (1900 – 1967) 
	 
Clyde Wann was born in Missouri and his family moved to Oregon when he was a boy.((Chris Weicht, //Air Route to the Klondike: An Aviation History. Air Pilot Navigator: Volume Three.// Victoria: Creekside Publications, 2006: 102, 118-19, 122-23, 125-27, 133-34.)) At age seventeen, he boarded a steamer from Seattle to Ketchikan, Alaska. He worked in many places including a mine on Prince of Wales Island, in Cordova as a longshoreman, in Kennicott in the copper mine, on a dredge in Nome, and prospecting in the hills near Mount McKinley. He met James Finnegan in Fairbanks and in 1924 they worked for Treadwell Yukon out of Mayo for money to start a commercial airline.((Yukon Archives, Clyde Wann biographical sketch. Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. fonds, 82/562 and 88/10.))

The Yukon Airways and Exploration Company was launched in 1926 with Finnegan as president and Wann as vice-president.((Yukon Archives, Clyde Wann biographical sketch. Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. fonds, 82/562 and 88/10.)) They were not pilots. Mayo ex-RCMP Constable Andrew Cruikshank was the pilot and general manager and Alan Innes-Taylor served as secretary-treasurer. Cruickshank and Innes-Taylor had served in the Royal Flying Corps in France during the First World War. The company was incorporated at Dawson  on 4 May 1927 with its head office in Whitehorse. A large crowd assembled at the Whitehorse airstrip to welcome their new plane, //Queen of the Yukon,// and the pilots took people on short joy rides at $10 per person.((Chris Weicht, //Air Route to the Klondike: An Aviation History. Air Pilot Navigator: Volume Three.// Victoria: Creekside Publications. 2006: 102, 118-19, 122-23, 125-27, 133-34.))

In 1929, the //Queen of the Yukon// crashed in Whitehorse and Cruickshank left the company. Wann persuaded the partners to buy another plane with money supplied by Yukon subscribers. He travelled to Colorado and bought an Alexander Eaglerock A-2 three-seat bi-plane. He also hired John Melville Patterson, the chief pilot for Rocky Mountain Airways. The new aircraft was christened //Northern Light.// In 1929, Innes-Taylor left the Yukon to join the Byrd Expedition to the South Pole. Yukon Airways was thriving again by 1929, and the company bought a new Ryan B-5 Brougham, //Queen of the Yukon II.// On 2 November 1929, the mechanic had not finished repairs when Patterson took off from Mayo. He crashed and was killed, and the //Queen of the Yukon II// was destroyed.  The //Northern Light// was bringing Wann to Whitehorse from Mayo when the engine quit. Pilot Percy Nelson could not land on the thin ice near Carmacks, and the landing gear was destroyed when the plane landed on rocks. This was the end of Yukon Airways and Exploration Co. Ltd.((Chris Weicht, //Air Route to the Klondike: An Aviation History. Air Pilot Navigator: Volume Three.// Victoria: Creekside Publications. 2006: 102, 118-19, 122-23, 125-27, 133-34.))

In 1933, Wann started Skagway Airways and hired Vern Bookwalter to fly his Fairchild FC-2W from Skagway to Dawson and points in-between. White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) company president H. J. Wheeler did not like competition to the WP transportation monopoly and the company started their own airline, White Pass Airways, hiring Bookwalter away from Wann. Wann then hired pilot Slim Manifee. Wann's Fairchild was on an overnight charter to Haines when it backfired and burned in August 1934. Wann next acquired a five-passenger Buhl Air Sedan in November 1934 and formed a partnership with experienced aviator Lawrence W. Muehleisen from California.  Muehleissen was a dependable pilot plus being a capable engineer and mechanic. The company hired Alf Walker as engineer at Whitehorse and Bud Holbrook and Bud Harbottle as two young apprentices to expedite the Buhl. The two Buds changed skis on the plane and rebuilt the two wrecked Ryans with Alf Walker. They also took flying lessons from Muehleissen when he was in town. Muehleissen and three passengers crashed at Skagway in January 1935 with no survivors. Wann abandoned his attempts to enter aviation and turned to other ventures in the Yukon.((Chris Weicht, //Air Route to the Klondike: An Aviation History. Air Pilot Navigator: Volume Three.// Victoria: Creekside Publications. 2006: 102, 118-19, 122-23, 125-27, 133-34.))
	
Wann met Frank Steele when he was in Atlin, British Columbia and Steele lent him $20 to get to Whitehorse where he was successful in winning a contract to install telephones along the under-construction Alaska Highway.((Fearon Lindsay “Frank” Steele.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 16 November 2012.)) Wann spent his summers prospecting in the Mayo area. After the Alaska Highway was completed, Wann repossessed a large garage for a Chrysler franchise and called the new business Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. Under that business name he built and operated Morley River Lodge at Mile 777.7, the Swift River Lodge at Mile 733, Beaver Creek Lodge at Mile 1202, and Destruction Bay Lodge at Mile 1083.((Yukon Archives, Clyde Wann biographical sketch. Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. fonds, 82/562 and 88/10.)) Frank Steele and his family ran the Swift River Lodge. The Beaver Creek Lodge was run by Helen Wann. Cylde Wann ran Morley River Lodge at mile 777.7, where he often fired the cooks and took over the duties himself. In 1954, Frank Steele and his family moved to Whitehorse and Frank managed two of Wann’s service stations: the Chrysler dealership downtown and Circle Service at the top of Two Mile Hill.((Fearon Lindsay “Frank” Steele.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 16 November 2012.)) A bowling alley on Main Street, owned by Mr. Brewster and Clyde Wann, burned on 21 September 1945. ((//The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 21 September 1945.)) Clyde Wann and Helen Shaug were married at Coeur D’Alene, Idaho in June 1949.((//The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 24 June 1949.)) 

In November 1967, Clyde was awarded the Canadian Confederation Medal, and he died a week later.((Andrea Buckley, “No troubled waters when duo built bridges.” //The Yukon News,// 7 June 1996.)) The Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. fonds held at the Yukon Archives includes business records for the company and personal records of Wann’s mining interests.((Yukon Archives, Clyde Wann biographical sketch. Clyde Wann Motors Ltd. fonds, 82/562 and 88/10.))