Charlie Ethelbert Ross (1909 – 1982)
	
Charlie Ross was born in Prince Edward Island. He left for the Prairies in the 1920s and became one of the seasonal harvest workers in Saskatchewan. He tried homesteading in northern Saskatchewan and maybe the Peace River country for a few years. In early 1933, he headed north and arrived at Skagway where he first heard that the Dollis Creek mine near the Yukon/British Columbia border needed men. He spent eight years in the Yukon, working in the mine in the summer and trapping every winter. He told stories about the north, mentioning Jimmy Kane, David Hume, and Elijah Smith.((John Steeves, "They found Uncle Charlie's nugget!" //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2006.))

In 1941, Ross joined the army and served in the Second World War. After the war he settled in Vancouver. He was married with small children and working as a stevedore on the waterfront. John Steeves met his uncle in 1957 when Charlie went east for a visit. At that time Charlie was an active Trosky Communist and talked about the big nugget that awaited him on Dollis Creek. In February 1978, Steeves became senior newsroom editor at CBC Yukon.((John Steeves, "They found Uncle Charlie's nugget!" //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2006.))

In 1978, Charlie arrived in Whitehorse on his way to his gold mine on Dollis Creek. After retiring from the docks, Charlie had re-staked the claims he used to work during the 1930s. His mine was a one man, pick and shovel, operation. He lived in a ramshackle cabin and mined with a tiny handmade sluice box. In 1979, the price of gold rose, and Charlie had new partners with front-end loaders, bulldozers and ATCO trailers. Gold went to $800 US per ounce and Charlie travelled to Dollis Creek by helicopter when they brought in fuel loads. More gold came out of the creek than ever did in the 1930s and Charlie was collecting ten percent of the take plus whatever he managed to find with his pick and shovel. Charlie had gold fever and believed he was a millionaire.((John Steeves, "They found Uncle Charlie's nugget!" //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2006.))

Charlie stared to fight with his partners, and new contracts were written on cigarette packs in Whitehorse bars. By 1981, various partners were asking the courts to settle the ownership tangle and Charlie had throat cancer. Charlie's immediate family sold Charlie's interests in the claim for a bit of money and let the others work it out for themselves. Charlie died in Vancouver in 1982. Eight months later news arrived that Heinz Eckervogt found a 33½-ounce nugget, almost four inches long, at Dollis Creek.((John Steeves, "They found Uncle Charlie's nugget!" //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 3 May 2006.))