Joseph Edward Whitehouse (1909 – 1995)
Ed Whitehouse was born near Dawson to Samuel John (Jack) and Jessie Whitehouse.1) Ed’s uncle and father had claims on Dominion Creek.2) After Ed’s mother died in 1916, his father enlisted for the First World War and left Ed with two elderly ladies in Prince Rupert. Jack returned in 1920 and took Ed back to Dawson. In 1925, Ed and his father took a trip to England and returned to the Yukon in 1926 with Jack’s brother Ed. They travelled the Overland Trail and Ed’s uncle died in Carmacks of a ruptured appendix.3)
Ed finished school in Dawson in 1927 and worked as a bookkeeper at the Dawson Hardware. In the winter of 1928/29, he had a contract to run mail from Dawson to Stewart River and on to Scroggie Creek and received $100 for each round trip. He collected furs from trappers along the way for $2 a pelt and took them to fur dealers in Dawson who gave him another $2 apiece. He made the 200-mile trip every two weeks and covered 4,000 miles that winter. Ed lost the contract to a lower bidder the following year when he raised his bid price. Ed’s mail run dog sled is now at the Yukon Transportation Museum.4)
Ed was hired by the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp (YCGC) in 1929 and worked on the dredges until 1934 when he was trained to run a steam shovel putting in hydro lines. Ed and Irene [Silas] were married that year, and they moved to a small cabin on Lee Creek. In the 1930s and ‘40s, Irene was the switchboard operator for YCGC’s telephone system. In 1937, Ed started work with the Yukon government as a firefighter in Dawson and he and his wife lived in an apartment over the firehall. In 1940, Ed transferred from the firehall to the ferry service and, after ten years of supervising the local operation, he was promoted to supervising the regional transportation system including highways and the ferries at Pelly and Carmacks. In that time, Irene raised their two children, was the head housekeeper at the hospital, and worked for the RCMP for five years.5)
Tourists came to Dawson from Alaska on the Top of the World Highway before the Mayo Road (North Klondike Highway) was extended to Dawson in the 1950s. The Whitehouse’s started the first motel business, Whitehouse Cabins at the north end of town. Ed retired after serving the government for thirty-seven years, and they sold the motel when they moved to Whitehorse in 1974.6)
Ed and Irene Whitehorse were chosen by the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Association as Mr. and Mrs. Yukon in 1982.
Ed Whitehouse was interviewed by Cal Waddington for Parks and Historic Sites, July - September 1978. The sound recording is held at the Yukon Archives, Yukon River Aural History Project, Acc # 81/32. The Yukon Archives houses Ed Whitehorse’s collection of photos of Dawson in the 1920s and ‘30s.7)