Robert Taylor
Bob Taylor immigrated to Saskatchewan from Peterhead, Scotland in 1928. He worked in a lumberyard but was not happy with the wage and after two years decided to visit his uncle Adam Birnie in the Yukon.1)
Adam Birnie immigrated to Canada in 1902 and worked on the construction of the Marsh Lake dam in 1923. In 1930, Birnie was living at the site doing any necessary work. In the spring, removal of boards in the dam would give the crews launching boats at the Whitehorse Shipyard ways twelve inches of extra water.2)
Bob Taylor arrived in the Yukon in March 1930. On his way up the coast, he met George Baird who offered him a job on the White Pass & Yukon Route’s Cowley station section crew. Bob had $4 when he arrived at his new place of work. He was not on the payroll right away, but the company gave him room and board at the station bunkhouse. The offered $104 a month seemed like a fortune to him. It was about fourteen miles from the station to the Marsh Lake dam, and right from the beginning Bob divided his time between both places. Winters were quiet and he took up trapping.3)
In 1933, Bob was promoted to foreman of the Cowley section crew and decided it was time to get married. He and his fiancé, Elizabeth (Liz), had been apart for seven years when she arrived in Vancouver in 1935. They were married in a simple ceremony attended by four riverboat skippers. Bob built a simple log cabin at Cowley Station as there was no accommodation for married employees. Bob’s crew was one of the best on the rail line and the secret was experience and continuity. The crew lived outside in the winter and would be broke in the spring so Bob would send them the money to return to their old jobs and they would pay him back.4)
Adam Birnie died in 1941. Bob Taylor took the offered foreman position and he and Liz moved to live year-round at the dam. They were known as the dam Taylors to distinguish them from the Taylors living in town. The quiet location became much busier after an Alaska Highway construction as crews set up a base camp nearby. The survey line went right through their cabin, and it was subsequently destroyed, but the construction team built them a new house. The riverboat era ended in the 1950s, and Bob Taylor switched to working for the Department of Public Works. The Taylors moved to Whitehorse in the early 1960s, and Bob went to work at the post office for five years before he retired.5)