Yukon who is who

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Elmer John "Stroller" White (1859 - 1930)
	
Elmer White was born near Cambridge, Ohio. He finished his education to become a teach but found it did not suit. He moved to Florida where he bought a controlling interest in the //Gainsville News.// He and his wife, Alice Josephine “Josie,” and their daughter, Lena, were living in Washington State when White heard about the Klondike strike and headed north.((“E.J. “Stroller” White, Alaska-Yukon Journalist.” Arctic & Northern Biographies, //ExploreNorth,// 2019 website:  http://explorenorth.com/library/bios/stroller_white.html))
	
White became an Associated Press reporter in Skagway and wrote many accounts of Soapy Smith and his gang. He moved to Dawson in 1899 where he covered local stories and started a gossip column called "The Stroller."((Les McLaughlin, "Stroller White, legendary newspaper man." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 17 August 2001.)) He wrote chatty columns for the //Dawson Daily News// in the early 1900s.((Edward F. Bush, “The //Dawson Daily News:// Journalism in the Klondike. Political Agitation and Journalistic Ferment, 1900-09.” Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 21. Parks Canada, 2019 website: http://parkscanadahistory.com/series/chs/21/chs21-3d1.htm))

In 1903, White was the manager and editor of the Dawson //Free Lance.// It was a four-page Saturday weekly devoted to local news. The first issue on 22 January 1903 defended capitol punishment and fondly remembered a number of lynchings in the United States. The paper lasted for only one season.((Edward F. Bush, “The //Dawson Daily News:// Journalism in the Klondike. Political Agitation and Journalistic Ferment, 1900-09.” Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 21. Parks Canada, 2019 website: http://parkscanadahistory.com/series/chs/21/chs21-3d1.htm)) 

White left Dawson for Whitehorse in 1904 to edit the //White Horse Star.// A fictional article about the equally fictional ice worm and cold weather blue ice won the attention of the Smithsonian Institute, who took the article seriously.  Southern newspapers picked up the story and in January 1907 a Philadelphia paper expanded on the live history of the ice worm. Taylor & Drury ran an ad for winter clothing in 1906, warning people to buy before the blue ice came. Robert Service later wrote a poem about the worms and included White's follies in other poems such as one in 1910. White encouraged Service to publish his poems.((Les McLaughlin, "Stroller White, legendary newspaper man." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 17 August 2001.))

White leased the //Whitehorse Star// to the Rousseau family in 1916 and moved to Douglas, Alaska where he began publishing the //Stroller's Weekly.// In 1921, Rousseau was dead and White could not run the paper from Douglas, so a group of private citizens took over the weekly publication to run it as a community paper.((Les McLaughlin, "Stroller White, legendary newspaper man." //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 17 August 2001.)) The first issue of the paper under the new community management was published on 17 June 1921.((//The Weekly Star// (Whitehorse), 17 June 1921.)) The new editor of the //Weekly Star,// Mrs. E.L. Wilson, was announced on June 24th.((//The Weekly Star// (Whitehorse), 24 June 1921.)) 
	
Newspaper articles by and about Stroller White are posted on Murray Lundberg’s website.((http://explorenorth.com/library/bios/stroller_white.html; R.N. De Armond, ed., //Tales of a Klondike Newsman.// Vancouver: Mitchell Press, 1969. Website: "Tales Of A Klondike Newsman"))