John “Joe” Braga
John Braga immigrated from Italy to Dawson in 1926 with his wife and small daughter.1) He had a wood camp at Scroggie Creek where he cut wood for the Stewart River riverboats. The family moved to Bear Creek, near Dawson, when Joe got a job with Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp. (YCGC).2) His name first appears on the company payroll as a thawer, working to thaw the ground ahead of a dredge, in 1930.3) Joe and Angela’s youngest son, Mike, was a year old. The family lived at Bear Creek for two or three years and they had another son, Julio, born in 1931. They needed more room so moved into Dawson to a house on Sixth Avenue. Joe worked for YCGC on the flats in the dredge thawing operation and then moved to the Machine Shop at Bear Creek.4) From 1936 to 1966 on he was a welder and a lay-out man. He decided not to leave town when YCGC closed down.5)