Tomas Agusta Byrne (1924 – 2019)
Tom Byrne was born in Dublin, Ireland and arrived in Canada with his family in 1956. He came to Inuvik in the early 1970s, hired by the NWT housing corporation. Byrne started an amateur theatre troupe group and brought a group to the Klondike Break-Up Drama Festival in 1979. He recited a bit of Robert Service and was invited to appear regularly at the Parks Canada Robert Service Cabin during the summer months. Byrne performed the Robert Service Show for the next 28 years, excluding one season where he staged the show in Vancouver during Expo 86. He acquired a cabin in the north end of Dawson and spent his summers and some of the winters in Dawson. In the off-season, he toured the show in schools all over British Columbia’s lower mainland. In 1999, after a contract dispute, Byrne moved his show to a store front on Front Street and then to the Westmark Hotel in Dawson. Suffering from ill health, Tom Byrne held his last regular performance in 2009.1) Tom Byrne retired to Roberts Creek, British Columbia and is buried in Gibsons, British Columbia.2)