Donald Emerson Taylor (1933 - 2012)
Don Taylor was born in Ontario and was raised by adoptive parents. He went to Calgary for a summer job, moved on to work as a ranch hand in British Columbia, and arrived in Whitehorse in 1949. Alex Van Bibber took him under his wing for the first years. Taylor went on to prospecting and spent eleven years staking claims for other companies.1)
Taylor was first elected as an MLA from Watson Lake in 1961, and he was appointed Speaker of the Assembly in 1974. He served six consecutive terms, twenty-four years, until the last term ended in 1985. In 2002 he went from a loyal party member to an opponent during Fentie’s government when he was told to vacate his home and business at Stewart Lake and relocate 100 feet back from the water. Taylor was running a successful wilderness lodge and fishing camp, although business declined when jet service to Watson Lake was discontinued in the 1990s.2)
In 1979 Taylor started a radio program, the “Daily Sked,” to connect with northern bush dwellers and trappers. He relayed messages, weather reports, and news. A few times his program helped to rescue trappers who needed an airlift. Taylor had to move into Whitehorse in 2010 with the retirement of the Angus Air ski plane pilot, and Taylor’s need for cancer treatments in Vancouver.3)
After Taylor was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2012, he moved back to Watson Lake where he started a lively blog on government scandals and misdeeds. He continued his radio broadcasts for the trapping community and died about a month before the programs would have reached a thirty-third anniversary.4)