James R. P. Gaudin

James Gaudin left Victoria in July 1897 on the SS Thistle with a crew of men, supplies and equipment (including a sawmill) to build a small sternwheeler at the south end of Teslin Lake. They disembarked at Wrangell and took their outfit up the Stikine River over the fall, winter and spring to the lake.1) The Teslin & Yukon Transportation Company (T&YT) was building the sternwheeler in anticipation of the construction of a railway from Telegraph Creek, British Columbia.2) The sternwheeler was built by Captain Charles Edward MacDonald, Captain Frank Armstrong, and Gaudin of the F.N. York & Company.3) The Anglian was the first of the Yukon fleet to be built of native spruce. She started for Dawson about 20 June 1898. The boat was purchased by the Canadian Development Company (CDC) in 1901 and dismantled in 1931 at Whitehorse. James Gaudin was promoted to the CDC Chief Engineer in 1902, and he became the Superintendent Engineer of the company in 1914, draughting plans and supervising projects. He served the river division of White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) for fifty-four years.4) J. R. Gaudin was the Port Engineer for the WP&YR in 1928.5)

1) , 4)
Alaska Weekly (Seattle), 24 October 1952 in Ed. Ferrell, Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers, 1850-1950. Juneau: Heritage Books Inc., 1994: 212-213.
2)
“List of steamboats on the Yukon River.” Wikipedia, 2018 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steamboats_on_the_Yukon_River
3)
Edward L. Affleck, A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon and Alaska. Vancouver: Alexander Nicolls Press. 2000: 71.
5)
Whitehorse Star (Whitehorse), 25 May 1928.