James “Jimmy” Lynch (1913 - 2002)
Jimmy Lynch was born in Birkenhead, England and raised in Liverpool with four brothers and one sister. He left school at fourteen to haul a hand cart, and then went to work as a painter. He sailed to Canada in 1929 at age fifteen with only fifteen shillings in his pocket. He worked for several years on a farm in Ontario and eventually moved west to arrive on the Sixtymile River.1) It was the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s. He worked 30 metres down in a drift mining operation.2)
Lynch spent some years as a sergeant in the Canadian Army during the Second World War, and received the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp, the Defence Medal, Italy Star, 1939-45 Star and the France and Germany Star.3)
He worked on a dredge in the 1950s, earning $1.50 an hour which was a good wage for those days. After the dredge shut down in 1959, he continued to hand mine his own claim on the Sixtymile until his balance failed and he had to retire. Jimmy then spent his winters in Dawson and his summers at his cabin at Sixtymile, tending his vegetable garden.4)
Lynch loved to walk and often walked to Dawson from the claim, sometimes just for a piece of pie. He was a gentleman and will be missed for his cheerful, kind ways. Jimmy's funeral was at St. Mary's Church and he was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery. He was survived by his brother Joe and family in England and Canada.5)