Joe Netro

Joe Netro, Harry Healy, and Charlie Strum took over the Northern Commercial Co. (NCCo) business on the Porcupine River after 1916 when the NCCo freight boat caught fire and was abandoned. The partners had a big boat, called a launch, to haul freight and hardware.1)

In the 1920s, Strum ran the trading post at Old Rampart, in Alaska, Healy had a post in Old Crow, and Netro had a post near Rampart House, Yukon. They had three big boats with thirty-five-horse-power engines and two big barges. Joe Netro had a big factory engine and truck engine on a boat and he had a big barge. They hauled their supplies up the Porcupine River from Fort Yukon, Alaska. The steamer Yukon brought freight from Dawson every week and when it came in, they loaded it up and went. They hauled about ten to twelve tons at a time and made lots of trips.2)

Joe Netro built and operated a store at Whitestone Village for three or four years in the 1940s. Joe Netro and Harry Healy ran a store in Old Crow around 1950. The trappers would bring in their furs to sell for supplies and Netro would ship the furs out, probably to Vancouver. Before that the trappers had to take the fur all the way down to Fort Yukon. Martin skins were worth $16 in the 1950s.3)

1)
“Recollections: Old Crow Elders Tell of Change in the Community.” An oral history project by the students of Te’sek Gehtr’oonatun Zzeh. Spring 1997: 40-41.
2)
Richard Martin as told to Bill Pfisterer, K'aiiroondak: Behind the willows. University of Fairbanks. 1993: 174-175, 184-86.
3)
Erin Sherry and Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, The Land Still Speaks: Gwitchin words about Life in Dempster Country. Whitehorse: Aasman Design Inc., 1999: 4-6, 157.