Rita Hamilton

Rita Hamiltion came north with her husband and four children in 1946. They wanted to homestead in Alaska, but the highway was closed during extreme cold weather. They were stuck at Coal River and fell in love with an old construction camp at Morley River. They leased the buildings and moved into the only liveable building, an old steam bath. In 1947, they built the first Morley River Lodge at mile 777.7. Rita painted landscapes that she sold to highway travellers. After ten years, Rita moved south to California and stayed away for eighteen years. She wrote to a man and came north again to marry him in 1973. Living in Whitehorse, Rita wrote poetry which was published in The Anchorage News and The Midnight Sun Quarterly. She became involved in New Horizons, a group dedicated to making life better for seniors.¹⁾