James “Jim” Baker. (d. 1895)
Jim Baker was probably from Nashville, Tennessee and spent his youth supplying game in the west for lumber and mining camps.1) Baker came into the Yukon over the Dalton Trail with a herd of cattle. He drove them to the Pelly River where they were slaughtered and shipped to Mayo. On his return he married Sadie, a Tagish woman from Marsh Lake. They lived in the Kluane Lake area.2) “Tanner” Baker got his nickname from the texture of his breakfast bannock. He was nick-named by fellow guides out of Kluane Lake in 1916.3)
The Bakers moved up the Teslin River where they raised a family.4) Sadie and Jim had four children: John, Jack, Elsie and Dorothy. Elsie never knew her mother who died of smallpox around 1917/1918 [1914 at Cultus Lake?]. They had just moved from their home on the Slims River to the Livingstone area. After Sadie's death, Elsie and Dorothy were sent to the residential school in Dawson.5) In April 1925, Baker made a hurried trip to Dawson by dog team to see his four children at St. Paul’s hostel.6)
In 1928, Jim built a number of cabins on the Boswell River and brought the girls home. Elsie was then fourteen. The Bakers lived at Boswell until the early 1940s when they moved into a community along the Alaska Highway.7)
James Baker’s son, Johnny, married Mabel Sidney from Carcross. They had a camp at the entrance to the Porcupine Valley. The road from Carcross was built by the United States Army when they were sawing lumber for the Tagish Bridge. Mabel was a descendant of Skookum Jim. Johnny Johns was her uncle and Pete Sidney was her brother. Both men were notable guides. Like most locals, whenever they found mineralization, they staked the ground and tried to get a mining company to buy.8)