R. Gordon Lee (d. 1970)
Gordon Lee was born in England and came to Mayo where he worked as an accountant for Treadwell Yukon at the Wernecke and Elsa camps. In 1924, Gordon married Evelyn Middlecoff and they had two children, Doreen and Katherine. He was a partner in the Homestake property on Bunker Hill and was a member of the Yukon Council for the Mayo district, 1940 - 1943.1)
In 1944, Lee bought a building housing Vandt’s Novelty Shop in Whitehorse. It was constructed in the early 1940s on Main Street adjacent to the old White Pass Hotel. R. Gordon Lee bought the business in 1944 and changed the name to the Yukon Jewellery and Novelty Shop. In 1946, he purchased the North Craft Indian Store, building and stock, located on Main Street between Second and Third avenues. With the store came the rights to a poem and a cartoon of a bird flying the northern skies crying “Kee-Kee-Kee-Krist but it’s cold!“ Lee erected a new building on the site and put the cartoon on a big sign over the front door of the Novelty Shop. Lee opened his new business, locally known as the Kee Bird store, in the fall of 1956. Lee sold Yukon jewellery, native and crafts, china, clothing and footwear, and was the first business in Whitehorse sell fresh flowers and offer ‘outside’ paper for sale.2)
Gordon Lee was acclaimed to a seat representing Whitehorse on the Yukon Territorial Council in January 1947.3) In November 1947, Lee moved his Whitehorse Yukon Jewellery and Novelty Shop to new quarters on Main Street. The Whitehorse newspaper congratulated him on his faith in the future of Whitehorse and thought his new neon sign a great acquisition to the town.4)
In 1949, Gordon Lee was a director on the Whitehorse Board of Trade. The president was Alan MacGregor, the vice-president was Keith Johnson, and the secretary was R.J. Rowland. The other directors were Rolf Hougen, Jim Norrington, D. Cavaye, E. Lortie, W.D MacBride, George Van Roggen, and Ed Harper.5) Whitehorse was a White Pass & Yukon Route company town until 1950 when the community was incorporated. Until then, the Board of Trade acted in the absence of an elected municipal government.
Gordon Lee retired in 1956 and sold the Novelty Shop to Jack Needham.6) The Lee's retired to Brentwood Bay, British Columbia. Daughter Katherine (Katy) married Canadian ambassador Terry Bacon.7) Gordon served two terms as mayor of Central Saanich. Doreen Lee lived in Victoria in 1996.8)