William “Wee Willie” Anderson (b. 1914)
Bill Anderson’s brother Jack had worked in Dawson and in 1937, during the Depression, the brothers came north somewhat assured by Jack’s experience that there would be work. Bill was astonished to find that Dawson had electric lights and flush toilets. That winter he did odd jobs, lived in the Westminster Hotel, and ate at the F&F Café where meal tickets could be punched for $60 a month. He eventually got work with Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp (YCGC) and worked a number of seasons on the dredges. Bill was working for YCGC when the company hit a very rich area of pay dirt at the mouth of Hunker Creek. The sluice runs were yellow with gold, and the men were cleaning up every eleven hours.1) Just before the war, Bill was working on Yukon Dredge No. 2 and known as an outstanding Bear Creek ball player.2)
In 1942 during the Second World War, Bill worked as a bulldozer operator on the Snag airstrip construction. 3) He was also freighting material to the site. Other Dawsonites were also working at Snag, including C. B. Smith, driving a “cat,” and Erland (Snooze) Benson, Reg Ryan, Earl Brooks, and Vic McLellan who are all involved in trucking.4) That same year, Bill decided to enlist and signed on with the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry. He spent two years in the Canadian Army but did not see action. Anderson returned to Dawson and was offered a job with the McCrae interests operating a revamped dredge on Clear Creek for Queenstake Resources.5)
In 1946, Dawson received a broadcast license, and a fledgling radio station was assigned the call letter CFYT. While they were waiting for the official license, the signal corps had transformed a shortwave set into a standard broadcast radio with the understanding that they would maintain the equipment if the locals would supply the programming. Yukon’s first commercial radio station was born and went out of business without ever delivering a broadcast, but the volunteer radio was a success. Bill “Wee Willie” Anderson filled the morning slot from 7am to twelve noon. The Dawson women ran the afternoon show, and the local teenagers played rock and roll in the evenings. Following the war, the station received programming from the United States Forces in Whitehorse but the Dawson station would report on the weather and the arrival and departure of the Bear Creek school bus. CFYT was there to support the community in times of fire and flood. CBC took over the station in 1958, and Anderson was kept on salary as a station operator. In 1961, CBC installed repeater stations, and the community-run radio content came to an end. The local facility was shut down and all programming was fed from Whitehorse. In 1961, Anderson and his wife Elsie moved to Whitehorse where Wee Willie Anderson took up the announcer’s position he kept until his retirement in 1978.6)
The legendary Wee Willie Anderson was widely known in the Yukon for loudly yelling “Yahoo” to start his daily western roundup show.7)