Bert Cluett (1875 - 1971)
Bert Cluett was born in Dorset, England.1) He came to Canada in 1895. He met the Jacquots on Christmas Day in 1903 while on his way to the Kluane Gold Fields. He helped the Jacquots build their trading post and often worked there when not trapping or prospecting. Cluett left Burwash for several years and cut wood for the sternwheelers.2)
Atsua Ku (Grandma’s Camp) / Cluett’s wood camp was on Croucher Creek, a tributary of the Yukon River below Whitehorse, in the 1920s and '30s. He had a large garden on the other side of the Yukon River and marketed his produce in Whitehorse. He would load up his wheelbarrow and wheel down to Whitehorse where he would holler across the river until someone came over to pick him up. He cut wood for Whitehorse residents in the winter.3) Cluett’s fox farm and wood camp was on the west side of the Yukon River below McIntyre Creek and the wide part of the Yukon River. He also had a wood camp on the opposite side of the Yukon.4)
Cluett moved back to Burwash Landing in the 1930s.5) In 1942, he was a cook in a US Army Engineer's camp during the construction of the Alaska Highway. He was a small, bearded man who often wore a red skull cap.6) He was a well-known character in Burwash Landing. He was a bartender for the Beer Parlour and for the Burwash Landing Resort Lodge. He was a short man but had no trouble with a rough bar crowd. He kept a large club behind the bar and his nickname was “Wolverine.” Burt lived in the northeast section of the old Beer Parlour when the back room was a bar. This was before Leland Allinger built a bar in the Lodge in the 1950s. Cluett lived his last few years in Room #4 of the Resort. He passed away of a heart condition.7) He died at Burwash at the age of 97, cheerful, friendly, and energetic.8)
Bert Cluett is an inductee in the Yukon Prospectors Hall of Fame. He prospected through the Yukon from 1910 to 1971.9)
There is a Mount Cluett and a Cluett Creek in the Yukon. Cluett Creek is located between Destruction Bay and Burwash Landing.