Joe Henry, Shada (1898 - 2002)
	
Joe Henry was born in the Blackstone country north of Dawson.(("Dawson Celebrates the Life of Joe Henry." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 9 April 2002.)) Joe Henry and Mary Vittrekwa were adopted and raised together with Joe Martin [in Fort McPherson].((Mary Jane Moses, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in newsletter, May 2002.)) Henry started working on the riverboats in 1919. He didn’t speak English at the time, but he needed money to marry his future wife Annie Mitchel. The boat he was working on was on the St. Michael-Dawson run carrying freight. He and Annie Mitchel married in 1921 as an arranged marriage and they raised eleven children: Ida, Peter, Percy, Edna, Henry, Isaac, Mary, Fanny, Margaret, Victor and William (Waldo).(("Dawson Celebrates the Life of Joe Henry." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 9 April 2002.))\\
	
In 1927, the Henrys moved to Fort McPherson, NWT but decided after a few years to come back to Dawson. They lived at Moosehide where Joe had a job as a longshoreman, loading the White Pass boats in Dawson and walking to work over the Moosehide Trail every morning. Annie stayed at home to look after their large family.((Dawn Mitchell, “68th Wedding Anniversary.” //Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 27 July 1989.))\\
	
The family had three homes, two on the Dempster Highway and one at Moosehide. In the mid-thirties, the children attend school in Moosehide. Many people left Moosehide for Dawson after a deadly flu epidemic and in 1957, the government withdrew the village teacher, shutting down the school. The Henry's were among the last to leave and they moved into town so the children could continue school.(("Dawson Celebrates the Life of Joe Henry." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 9 April 2002.))\\

In February 1955, Joe was hired by Westron Minerals to guide a cat train from Flat Creek to the Peel River. Westron was going to explore for oil and took heavy equipment and bulldozed a road as they went. Miles of that old road is the Dempster Highway today. Henry spent a summer or two in the 1950s piloting the powered barge //Brainstorm// up to Old Crow.(("Dawson Celebrates the Life of Joe Henry." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 9 April 2002.))\\

At age 66, Joe and his 19-year-old son Victor were hired to take Dick North and Robin Burian to Jack London's cabin on Henderson Creek. The cabin was divided, and half went to Oakland, California. That summer, Joe Henry and Dick North travelled to Oakland. Joe had never been outside and was interested in the escalators and tunnels. When the children finished school, the Henrys moved to a cabin on the Dempster Highway. When Joe was in his mid-eighties he developed hearing and seeing difficulties and the family moved back to Dawson.(("Dawson Celebrates the Life of Joe Henry." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 9 April 2002.))\\ 
	
In 1972, the Yukon Native Brotherhood (YNB) and the Yukon Association of Non-Statis Indians (YANSI) incorporated the Thay Lun Lin Communications Society (renamed in 1975 as Ye Sa To). In 1978, Ye Sa To aired its first film production on CBC-TV; a twenty-minute film profiling Joe and Annie Henry produced under the newly created Northern Producers Film Association Program.((Valerie Alis, //Un/Covering the North: News, Media and Aboriginal People.// UBC Press, 1999: 128.))

Joe and Annie Henry received a 1990 Yukon Historical and Museums Association heritage award for their contributions in documenting the oral history of the Blackstone people.((“Jim Smith gets heritage award.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 8 February 1991.)) The Henrys went into the Guinness Book of World Records for their long-lived marriage. They have more than 100 direct descendants. Joe lived in three different centuries.((“Elders declared world's longest-married couple." //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 7 March 2000.)) Annie Henry predeceased her husband in 2005 at the age of 101.