Edward Menard (b. 1879)
Edward Menard arrived in Dawson on June 1st, 1899.1) In 1901, Menard, who worked as a logger, made the first payment for a 20-acre lot for farming purposes at the location of the present-day Pelly River Ranch.2) The cabin that Menard built at the lower end of the farm flat is still [barely] standing. His friend, George Grenier, arrived in 1906 and they formed a partnership where Grenier looked after the farm while Menard worked elsewhere.3)
In 1908, the widow Mrs. Joseph Wright and her 13-year-old son Percy came to visit her brother and his wife, Robert and Hilda Lothrop at Minto. Mrs. Wright started work at the Pelly Crossing Roadhouse, about three miles about of the mouth of the Pelly River and three miles below the farm. The roadhouse serviced travellers along the Overland Trail between Whitehorse and Dawson. George Grenier and Mrs. Wright were married in 1909 at the mission church at Fort Selkirk. The Greniers boarded horses used on the Overland Trail, sometimes as many as thirty, and mules as well. Grenier farmed and sometimes ran a raft of logs down to Dawson. They had a dry well that went before frost level to keep meat, fish and milk. Grenier brought the first milk cow to Pelly Farm via the sternwheeler to Fort Selkirk. The Greniers ran the farm until they left in 1912.4)
Grenier and Meniard owned the farm from 1901 to 1915. During the last four years, Menard was also employed as the telegraph operator at Fort Selkirk [1910-1914]. Frank Chapman and Pete Olsen bought the property in 1915 and cleared more farmland.5)