Lucille Hunter (1879 -1972)
	
Lucille and Charles Hunter were black Americans, the children of slaves. They came to the Klondike over the Stikine Trail in 1897, travelling by boat, foot, and dogsled in temperatures that reached down to fifty below. About one hundred black stampeders came to Yukon during the gold rush.((Katherine Sandiford, A” Hidden History.” //Up Here,// January-February 2009: 39.)) 

Lucille was nine months pregnant and their daughter Teslin was born at Teslin Lake. They later had a son, Buster. They staked a claim on Bonanza Creek in February 1898 and were living at Grand Forks in 1901.((Ed and Star Jones, "Blacks in Yukon 1898-1942." Unpublished paper, June 2010.)) After the First World War the Hunters mined silver claims near Mayo and gold claims in the Black Hills. Lucille was a cook in Dawson and worked as a cook in Keno Hill.((“Hunter Family: Extraordinary Endurance.” Hidden Histories Society Yukon, 2019 website: http://hhsy.org/projects/hunter-family/))
	
When Charles died in 1939, the //Dawson News// published a eulogy on the front page, calling him a well-liked old timer and a well-respected man.((Katherine Sandiford, A” Hidden History.” //Up Here,// January-February 2009: 39.))  Lucille hired people to mine, walking between Dawson and Mayo to manage the claims.((“Hunter Family: Extraordinary Endurance.” Hidden Histories Society Yukon, 2019 website: http://hhsy.org/projects/hunter-family/)) Hunter was living in Keno in 1923-24 and she had claims on Keno Hill that she prospected herself.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 390.)) 

Lucille moved to Whitehorse in 1943 and operated a laundry.((“Hunter Family: Extraordinary Endurance.” Hidden Histories Society Yukon, 2019 website: http://hhsy.org/projects/hunter-family/)) Her little laundry on Wood Street did a good business during the war as newcomers flooded into the Yukon. She made a good living for decades, even after she was going blind.((Katherine Sandiford, A” Hidden History.” //Up Here,// January-February 2009: 43.)) Her failing eyesight eventually forced her to close the laundry, but she kept her mining claims, flying to Dawson in 1949 to renew them. After a fire destroyed her home, friends provided an apartment.((“Hunter Family: Extraordinary Endurance.” Hidden Histories Society Yukon, 2019 website: http://hhsy.org/projects/hunter-family/))

In 1970, Mrs. Lucille Hunter became an honorary member of the Dawson Yukon Order of Pioneers Lodge at the Whitehorse General Hospital where she had resided for three years. Her membership pin was presented by Mike Comadina of Dawson City.(("Honoured by Pioneers." //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 27 April 1970.)) Lucille Hunter is buried in Whitehorse in the Grey Mountain Cemetery.((Katherine Sandiford, "A Hidden History.” //Up Here,// January-February 2009: 39.))