Lawrence Olsen (d.1899)

Lawrence Olsen was working as a telegraph lineman based at Five Finger Rapid when he, Frederick Clayson, and Linn Relfe were murdered by George O’Brien on Christmas day in 1899. They were ambushed and killed for whatever belongings they were carrying. Olsen was using a trail along the Yukon River to maintain the telegraph line. He travelled north from the Five Fingers telegraph station to find a break in the line and stopped for the night at Constable Patrick Ryan’s police station at Hoochikoo. Ryan had invited some local woodcutters for Christmas dinner the next day and extended the invitation to Olsen. Olsen found the break near Fussell’s Road House at Old Minto and fixed it with the assistance of a North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) officer from Fort Selkirk. They spent the night at the roadhouse – as did two others travelling the trail, Frederick Clayson and Linn Relfe. Olsen invited them to Ryan’s Christmas dinner at Hoochikoo. It should have been an easy four-to five-hour trip. They were instead ambushed and killed by O’Brien and Thomas Graves and their bodies were dragged into a hole dug in the river. O’Brien was hung in Dawson in 1901 for committing the crimes. Graves, or his body, was never found.¹⁾

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