Yukon who is who

Daniel Cadzow (d. 1929)

Dan Cadzow was born in Scotland.¹⁾ He was a trader in New York before he came to the Yukon.²⁾ He and a man named Erickson were at Great Slave Lake during the Klondike gold rush. They encountered Jim Wallwork who had a sternwheeler, Daisy Bell, that he was using to pull people across the lake. Some of Wallwork’s clients decided to highjack the steamer and Cadzow and Erikson rescued Wallwork after a few shots were fired. Wallwork agreed to tow Cadzow’s scow and also John “Steamboat” Wilson’s spoon-boat and York boat down to the mouth of the Rat River. They contracted some First Nation men who supplied thirty dogs and they dragged the Daisy Bell over the summit so they could go down the Porcupine River to Fort Yukon.³⁾

Cadzow stopped at David Lord Creek where there was good fishing for whitefish. He sold the fish to miners who were going past. From there he travelled down to Fort Yukon and up to Black River, Alaska. He made good money selling the fish there and started a trading post at Fish Hook Town on Black River. He moved up to Rampart House in 1904.⁴⁾

Rampart House is on the Porcupine River at the Yukon/Alaska border, the site of an old Hudson’s Bay Co. post. Daniel and Monica Njootli were married at Rampart House in 1909. Their house was elegant and comfortable, built when Cadzow’s business flourished between 1911 and 1922. He replaced the old Hudson Bay Co. buildings with a store and a warehouse and had a 43-foot steamer for getting down the Porcupine River to Fort Yukon, Alaska.⁵⁾ Cadzow brought in some fiddles and Archie Linklater taught some of the boys how to play. The musicians were in high demand at Christmas and events.⁶⁾

Cadzow faced competition from other traders and had high costs for freighting goods. He got into legal trouble with the Alaskan government when he did not get permits for cutting firewood to run his steamer. His Alaska property was seized in 1925 and the next year his boat was seized as well. He was refused credit in 1927 and went bankrupt.⁷⁾

Daniel’s second wife, Rachael Netro, and the rest of the community moved to Old Crow after Daniel died in 1929. He was very crippled with arthritis in the last years of his life.⁸⁾ He died in Dawson and had been sick with gallstones.⁹⁾ The Rampart House community was abandoned by the 1940s. Rampart House Historic Site is co-owned by the Yukon and the Vuntut Gwitchin governments and some of the buildings have been restored or stabilized.