William Ogilvie (1846 - 1912)

William Ogilvie was born in Ottawa. He was a Dominion Land Surveyor and a Dominion Topographical Surveyor, and he worked in the Canadian west from 1875 through the 1890s. In 1887/88, he led one of three groups surveying the Yukon River region.¹⁾ Ogilvie surveyed the course of the Lewes-Yukon River from Lake Lindeman to the 141st meridian.²⁾ He located the Canada / United States border at the meridian, but advised the Canadian government to wait on applying Canadian administration and tax duties on the Fortymile miners.³⁾

When the pace of gold discoveries quickened, Ogilvie recommended a modest form of administration and Ottawa sent North-West Mounted Police Captain Charles Constantine to the area in 1894 to assess the situation. That year, he was sent to look at the Taku River as a route into the Yukon from Juneau. Ogilvie did the work, although he was reluctant to leave an ailing son. He returned to the Yukon in 1895 to confirm the Alaska/Yukon border. He travelled with his eldest son over the Chilkoot Pass, where he renewed his acquaintance with packers Skookum Jim and his nephew Charlie.⁴⁾

At the Fortymile River he surveyed the townsites of Forty Mile and Cudahy and the surrounding placer claims, and continued work on the boundary survey. There was a pending agreement between Canada and the United States to survey the entire 141st meridian, and Ogilvie was appointed the project’s Canadian Commissioner. He was waiting at Forty Mile for further instructions when Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie, and George Carmack discovered gold on what would be called Bonanza Creek. The boundary survey was postponed but Ogilvie was kept in the Yukon by the weather. He moved to Dawson and surveyed mining claims, and the townsite which he named after his former supervisor George Dawson.⁵⁾

William Ogilvie returned to Ottawa in 1897 to find that Wilfred Laurier’s Liberals had replaced the federal Conservative government, and Clifford Sifton was the new Minister of the Interior. Ogilvie was appointed the first Commissioner of the Yukon Territory after it was established as a separate territory under the Yukon Act and was in the position from 1898 to 1901. As chief executive officer, he was responsible for all administration matters, and he had a Council of six appointed members to assist him. His familiarity with the federal bureaucracy and his experiences in the Yukon uniquely qualified him to deal with the chaos of the Klondike gold rush. He faced fierce opposition to some of his directions and the levying of taxes. Yukoners lobbied Ottawa for elected representation on the Yukon Council and called for Ogilvie’s dismissal even after the Commissioner announced his approval for an elected Council. Ogilvie resigned in 1901, citing poor health, but returned to the Yukon in later years on personal business. His memoir, Early Days on the Yukon, was published by his second wife after his death.⁶⁾

William Ogilvie was awarded the Murchison Gold Medal for his northern work and his name is in many places on northern maps.⁷⁾ Ladue and Harper named their trading post, and the island it sat on, in Ogilvie’s honour. The Klondike stampeders were mostly Americans, and their government named a peak in the St. Elias Range for him. In Canada, we have the Ogilvie Mountains, Ogilvie River, and the Ogilvie Glacier.⁸⁾ Whitehorse has Ogilvie Street, named for William Ogilvie.