Louis Bouvette (1878 – 1947)
Louis Bouvette was born in Manitoba of Metis, French, and Scottish ancestry. The family moved to Prince Albert where Louis and sister Helene witnessed the second Metis uprising.1) In 1898, Louis joined the Glen Campbell expedition as a wrangler, and they set out overland for the Klondike. They nearly starved and had to return to Edmonton. In 1901, Bouvette travelled up the coast to Dawson and then joined the stampede to Duncan Creek in 1901. He prospected and hunted meat for the miners, and he worked as a teamster with his own horse. He was an early staker on Haggart Creek and Dublin Gulch. Haggart Creek is a major tributary of the McQuesten River and Dublin Gulch is a pup of Haggart. He was also an early staker on Highet Creek around 1902. In 1903, Bouvette staked on Ledge Creek which flows into Mayo Lake. He staked a discovery claim on the left limit of Minto Lake in May 1908.2) In 1915, Bouvette bought land at Mayo. After a trip with the Jacquot brothers, Bouvette wrote a book called En Chasse: Randonnees dans le territoire du Yukon, published in 1929 in Switzerland under the name of Louis A. Bovet.3)
Louis Bouvette was one of about eighty prospectors who first staked claims in the Mayo/Keno region, and he was familiar with the area’s type of ore. In the fall of 1918, he found rich galena float on the slopes of Faro Gulch on the north side of what would be Keno Hill. He returned in July 1919 after the snow melted and traced the float uphill for 150m to a frost-shattered vein which he staked. It was about 120m below the summit plateau. Bouvette sent his ore samples to Yukon Gold, the pioneer Klondike dredging company. The samples assayed close to ore from the Silver King at the other end of the camp, and Alfred Kirk Schellinger was sent to examine the ground. The First World War was just ending, and the price of silver was the highest in almost a century. International interest led to further development and the Keno claim eventually became an important mine. Yukon Gold Company acquired the key claims and formed a new company called Keno Hill Ltd.4)
Bouvette prospected all over the Mayo area in the 1930s with his nephew Charles Dixon and with Donald Morrison, the husband of his niece, Jean. In the 1940s, Louis Bouvette lived at Minto Bridge. He was riding his horse near the bridge in 1947, and it is thought that he fell into the Mayo River and drowned. His body was never recovered.5)