George Dawson K’alazhaw (1902 – 1989)
George Dawson was born into the Dakl’awedi Clan at Long Lake camp, on the road to Livingstone Creek, to Jennie Boss Tusáxal and Dawson Jim of Lake Laberge. His maternal grandparents were Lhande and old Chief Mundessa, and his maternal uncle was Chief Jim Boss Kashxóot.1) George lived in a village a half mile up Lake Laberge where there were ten to twelve cabins all belonging to Jim Boss's family.2) He spent a lot of his time growing up in the wood camps where his father worked cutting wood for the Yukon River sternwheelers.3) George travelled with his parents, trapping and fishing. He also worked at his uncle Jim Boss's roadhouse near the present Ta'an village at Lake Laberge.4)
George went out on his own when he was fifteen years old.5) Dawson moved to Whitehorse when he was able to work and got a job on a section crew for six months. In about 1918, at age sixteen, he began working on the steamer Selkirk for a trip or two, running to Dawson and back. Then he worked for Taylor and Drury on their little boat, the Thistle. In 1919 they ran out of water and got stuck up the Pelly River for a month or more. He worked as a deckhand on the Selkirk, loading wood with the hand trucks, half a cord at a time. Then he worked as a deck boy on the steamer Dawson, where he cleaned upstairs on the deck and pilot house.6)
Some First Nation people families downriver and then came upriver on the steamers. George says that heard a captain insult an old Indigenous man, and that old medicine man made medicine so that the boat had trouble, the boiler blew up or something. White Pass used to bring up crews from Vancouver for all the boats except for the Dawson, which had an all First Nation crew. 7) In the early 1920s Dawson worked on the British Yukon Navigation (BYN) steamer Aksala and earned a reputation as a competent navigator.8)
George met Rachel Baum in 1923.9) She was a passenger on the boat he was working on, and they were married [at Fort Selkirk] soon after. They had nine children: Hilda, Kathleen, Edna, Arthur, Reggie, Harold, Malcom, Gerald, and Matthew.10) George had to give up his First Nation status to get his children out of residential school where they were being mistreated. He later regained his status after Bill C-31 was passed. Some of his grandchildren had to go to residential school.11)
George and Rachel trapped in the Golden Horn/Alligator Lake area and near Calzas Lake. George later worked as a long-shoreman and a fireman in Whitehorse and Mayo. He devised a derrick that could lift eight tons.12)
In 1941, George Dawson recruited and oversaw an all-First Nation crew to help surveyors from the U.S. Army scout potential routes for the pioneer Alaska Highway.13) After the riverboats stopped running, he worked for White Pass and later in the post office. He believed in saving First Nation historic sites and also worked at restoring the First Nation Cemetery in Whitehorse.14)
In 1956, the federal government’s Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) united the Ta’an Dun Band, two villages on Lake Laberge, with the Kwanlin Dun Band of Whitehorse.15) In 1978 a group of Kwanlin Dün First Nation members who were descendants from the Lake Laberge area took steps to form the Ta'an Kwäch’än First Nation. George Dawson served as their honorary hereditary chief during this time.16) In 1987, the Council for Yukon First Nations recognized the Ta’an Dün as an independent band, but band members were slow to gain DIA’s recognition, so they decided to work on a land claim in conjunction with the Kwanlin Dün.17)
In 1988, The Ta’an Dün Council officially recognized Elder George Dawson as its hereditary chief and spiritual leader. Dawson chose Glen Grady as the second hereditary chief to deal with the political and administrative duties of the council. The Council and Grady were governed by a consensus of the leaders of the families within the council as is the traditional First Nation custom. Dawson explained that he succeeded Chief Jim Boss as the next member of the Wolf Clan in line for chief. He said consensus was better than the democratic election practice introduced by the DIA because it did not produce bad feelings and divisions.18) Dawson’s official recognition as chief gave the Ta’an Dun Band a legitimate symbol of its existence.19) The Ta’an Kwach’an Council signed its final land claims agreement in 2002. The Council was represented by Glen Grady, its hereditary chief at the time.
In the 1970s, George Dawson shared his knowledge at conferences and with Yukon Archives. He organized the Chief Mundessa Club and obtained a grant to work with Elders and youth on maintaining the graveyards at Whitehorse, Marsh Lake and Lake Laberge. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1979, received heritage awards from the Yukon Historical and Museums Association and the Council for Yukon Indians in 1983, and received the Commissioners’ Award in 1988.20) George Dawson is buried in the Whitehorse Grey Mountain Cemetery.