Frank Blanchard (d. 2001)
Frank Blanchard was a Northern Tutchone man of the Wolf Clan. He was the son of Long Peter and Susan Baum and was raised by parents Ralph Blanchard Sr. and Susan Baum. He grew up on the Yukon River between Fort Selkirk and Hells Gate. He worked for Ralph Sr. when he was a young man, cutting wood for the steamers and the Yukon communities. He met his late wife Annie at Lakeview and they were married at Fort Selkirk on Christmas Day 1938. They had fourteen children. Frank, Annie and their three children rafted to Dawson in the late 1940s and settled in Tr’ochek with other Northern Tutchone families, including friends Charlie and Elise Johnson. Their children were sent away to residential school. Frank cut wood for the City of Dawson until he was hired by Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp as a handy man, maintaining the sewer and power lines. He used his old green Ford pick-up to freight cases and crates of food to Bear Creek. Later he moved on to work for NCPC doing similar jobs. Frank was known to his friends as “Machine Machine” because of his hard-working ways.1)