Charles H. Baxter (d. 1943)
Charlie Baxter arrived in the Yukon from San Bernardino, California in 1909. He came north to go big-game hunting and stayed. He guided hunters in the White River and Kluane country and wrote about his experiences in numerous American magazines.1) In 1918 he took a party into the Kluane region and, instead of returning to Whitehorse, he built a boat and rafted down the White River and then caught a steamer to Dawson.2) Baxter became one of the best-known hunting guides in the Yukon thanks to his superior advertising.3)
In July 1920, Baxter returned from Vancouver with twenty-five head of horses, twelve of which were for Shorty Austen of Carcross, another big game hunters’ guide.4) In the 1920s, Baxter’s trips would start from Whitehorse and end up in the McCarthy region of Alaska. The trips lasted two or three months and were very expensive.5)
In May 1921, R.M. Grant, a private banker in New York City, brought his son on one of Baxter’s guided hunting trips. Baxter’s team consisted of T.A. Dickson of Kluane, Charles H. Baxter, Ole Dickson, and Frank Sketch. That was the first hunting trip of a season that was expected to be quite busy.6)
Baxter, with wife Lucy and son Jimmy, developed a small ranch in Whitehorse in 1923. It was at the bottom of what is now Two Mile Hill and located on what is now Baxter Street. They lived in a two-storey, five room log house and grew a lush garden beside a small stream that ran through the property. Charlie grew hay to feed the horses he owned and used as a stage driver for White Pass. The Overland Trail to Dawson started at his front gate and climbed out of the valley via Baxter’s Gulch.7)
In July 1925, Baxter arrived in Whitehorse with a car of horses to be used by his hunting parties that summer.8) In January 1926, C.H. Johnson helped C. H. Baxter erect pens on his fox ranch and the foxes were moved into their new home.9) When automobiles became common, Charlie started Baxter’s Trucking, hauling freight on the Trail.10)
The family often travelled back to their home in California and in the 1930s, Jimmy Baxter became a well-known stunt man in Hollywood. During the Second World War, Charlie rented their ranch property in Whitehorse to the American military who used it to store equipment and covered everything with gravel and Quonset huts. In lieu of restoring the house and garden, the Americans gave their buildings to the Baxters. Charlie died in 1943 in California and Lucy Baxter was left to deal with the military by herself in 1946.11)
In 1947, Jack Elliot, Ed Barker, Irvine Ray, and Wardie Forest bought the Baxter ranch in Whitehorse for about $45,000. United Keno Hill Mines bought three acres of it in 1951. The Post Engineers used this area as their headquarters. In 1952, Bruce Sung bought the remainder of the land, next to the current location of the Yukon Inn, for Tourist Services.12)