Gertrude Jean Gordon (1918 - 2008)
Jean Gordon was born in Alice Arm, British Columbia and grew up in Stewart. She met her husband Wilfred Gordon there and they were married in 1937. Wilfred had been in Dawson and they moved there after a year of marriage. Wilfred got a permanent job with Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp looking after the Australia Ditch on Dominion Creek. In 1945, they moved to Mayo where their daughter started school. Jean was active as a volunteer for the Mayo Community Club, Community Theatre and was a weekly columnist for the Whitehorse Star.1)
In 1967, Jean was elected by Mayo as the first woman in the Yukon legislative assembly. At that time, the elected representatives were an advisory board to the appointed Commissioner. The seven Yukon councillors went to Ottawa to ask Trudeau and then minister of Northern Affairs, Jean Chrétien, for three members elected to a cabinet as a forerunner to responsible government. Trudeau gave the two and that was a true initiation of responsibe government for the Yukon. Jean was defeated in the 1970 election and returned to regular life in Mayo.2)
In 1972, Jean studied for her certificate in bookkeeping and then worked for Canada Manpower and the local Post Office. She started the Mayo Outreach Office and ran it for years. She served on the Territorial Water Board for twenty years. In 1999, Jean was the Yukon member on the Coordinating Committee for the International Year of Older Persons. Locally she organized the planting of thirty-four birch trees in Galena Park, one for every citizen of Mayo over 65 years of age. She helped to get the local paper, the Stewart Valley Voice, running and she was still working well into her 80s.3)