Darrell Duensing (~1925 - 2014)
Darrell Duensing was born in California. His father moved from Germany to America after the First World War and mined at Paradise, south and inland from Los Angeles. Darrell and his three brothers served with the American Army during the Second World War. Darrell was overseas before he went to work on the Alaska Highway and then he was sent to Fiji for a couple of months before the war ended. Darrell moved to Burwash after the war but he could only stay for six months at a time before he finally got his Canadian citizenship. He would have to go back to the lower States or drive to Tok. Grace Chambers met Darrell when she was working at the Burwash Lodge and by that time she and her first husband Carl Chambers were separated and she had raised their three kids by herself. Grace and Darell would drive to California, stopping at Chico and Reno for a bit, in the 1950s. The whole family would sometimes go to California for Christmas every two or three years.1)
Darrell prospected all around Kluane Lake. He mined across Kluane Lake at Gladstone and mined with Park Southwick at Reed Creek just up the Donjek in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He would bring the concentrate back to Burwash and he and Grace’s grandson Ernest sluiced it in the garage all winter.2)
Darrell knew Leland Allinger, a renowned wrangler, when they worked on the highway construction in the early 1940s. They bought the Burwash Lodge after owner Eugene Jacquot died in 1950. Allinger built an underground barn that housed fifty head of cattle on the property.3) Duensing had a little store at the lodge where he sold groceries and traded for furs. The local people would tell him what they wanted, and he would bring it in for them. Every fall, he and Leland would kill one of the cattle and take turns checking on it as it hung to season.4) Darrell was more interested in mining than ranching and at some point he sold his interest in the property to Allinger.5)
In the fall of 1970, Fred Taylor sold his Mayo area Dublin Gulch mining property to Ron Holway and his American partner, Darrell Duensing. They each invested $20,000 as a downpayment with the remainer due the following year. They mined together as Darron Placers Ltd. and purchased a D7 Caterpillar tractor and a cable operated dragline. They worked the claims for several years with Holloway’s wife cooking and Ron Mullins as an employee. In 1977, they had a hired crew of three including Don Edzerza from Dease Lake. Simon Mervyn, later chief of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun, also worked for the company at some point. Canada Tungsten was interested in the area and eventually purchased the claims owned by Darren Placers. Holoway and Duensing then went mining on Bear Creek, another tributary of the McQuesten River, and then Reed Creek in the Kluane District. Canada Tungsten tried mining the property in 1986 and then sold the property to geologist Gordon Gutrath who leased it back to Duensing and Holoway. They started mining there in 1988 under the name Dublin Gulch Mining Ltd. They worked with two crews of six to eight employees, working two shifts a day, until 1992. Duensing left the partnership after seven years to pursue other interests.6)
Grace and Darrell stayed together until Grace died in 2007.7)