Mike Nolan

Mike and Mary Nolan owned and operated the Marsh Lake Lodge in the late 1940s. The buildings were all log and attractively furnished. Mike was a former RCMP officer and Mary was a service woman during the war. They trapped during the winter, but kept the lodge open all year round.1)

Dorothy and her first husband Charles lived at the Marsh Lake highway maintenance camp between 1949 and 1952. When they left the Yukon, Mary and Mike Nolan gave them a farewell party at the lodge. Dorothy remembers that Mary was an army nurse during the war and she and Mike met in Whitehorse. They built the lodge, and Mike also had a big game outfitting business and took out hunters from all over the world. Dorothy's article2)

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Plautz bought the lodge in 1975 and planned to reopen the business. It burned to the ground in March 1976 and very little was salvaged.3)

1)
University of Alaska at Fairbanks Archives, Walter Hodges Coll. Mrs. Walter Hodges diary transcript in Fern Chandonnet ed., Alaska at War, 1941-1945. Papers from the Alaska at War Symposium. Anchorage Alaska, Nov. 11-13, 1993. Anchorage: Alaska at War Committee. 1995: 192.
2)
Dorothy Stuart, “Marsh Lake Camp at Mile 883 on the Alaska Highway” in Sam Holloway, editor, The Yukon Reader, Volume Two, 2024: 295-300.
3)
Andy Hume, “Marsh Lake Lodge Burns To Ground.” Whitehorse Star (Whitehorse), 3 May 1976.