Roy H. Sam (1938 - 1997)

Roy Sam was born at Lower Laberge to Alice (Broeren) Sam and Jim Sam. He attended the Whitehorse Indian Baptist Mission School in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His first job was working on the White Pass & Yukon Route railway. He enlisted for service in the Second World War at age seventeen and was stationed at Edmonton with the Canadian Airborne Regiment. He moved to the Second Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Winnipeg. He left the army in 1959.¹⁾ He met his future wife Florence (Morberg) MacIntosh in school and they married and had seven children.²⁾

In the 1960s, Sam became Deputy Chief of the Yukon Native Brotherhood and served with Harry Allen, Elijah Smith, Judy Gingell, Willie Joe, and Ray Jackson. He served as a Whitehorse Indian Band councillor under Survey Shorty, Elijah Smith, Clifford McLeod, and Johnny E. Smith. He was elected chief of the Whitehorse Indian Band from 1973 to 1977 and from 1977 to 1981. The first official band office was built, and the first Band Police Force was created during his administration. He met Indian Affairs Minister to persuade him that the chief should be a paid position and the First Nation village building codes were upgraded to the national standard.³⁾ Roy Sam travelled with the Canadian Chiefs and government officials to bring the Constitution home to Canada.⁴⁾ He studied the Alaska land claims and unsuccessfully tried to establish a land claim process that did not include borrowing money from the federal government.⁵⁾