Yukon who is who

George Harvey Crosby (1856 – 1942)

George Crosby was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in a farming family of eleven children. He moved west and in 1891 was in the Upper Kootenay region of British Columbia working at a sawmill. He came into the Yukon about 1899. In 1904, he was trapping with his partner John Barr near Russell Creek, at the fork of the Macmillan River, 300 river kilometres upstream of Pelly Crossing. They would have sold their furs at Fort Selkirk and spent about ten months of the year trapping or getting ready to trap and spend the winter at this remote site. In the winter of 1908/09, Crosby froze his toes on one foot and had to amputate his big toe to fend off gangrene. Barr was on his trap line about seventy kilometres away and when he returned, he found Crosby’s dog Faro who was still waiting patiently by Crosby’s abandoned toboggan. In the summer of 1909, Crosby’s foot was still mending and he appeared to have scurvy. He moved to the mouth of the Pelly River and found work at the Pelly Farm. In 1911, his brother Arthur wrote to the Royal North-West Mounted Police looking for him as they had been out of touch for about twelve years. Arthur had heard that George was in the wood business across the river from Fort Selkirk.¹⁾

In March 1917, George Crosby applied for a 160-acre homestead at the mouth of Garnet Creek, about twenty-one kilometres up the Pelly River.²⁾ In 1919, Crosby is reported as established fifteen miles up the Pelly River. That year he grew sixteen sacks of potatoes and some other vegetables, such as carrots and turnips, all of excellent quality.³⁾ By 1920, Crosby had a log house and stable and three acres under cultivation with fifteen acres cleared. He was working part time at the Pelly Farm in the winter. He needed to get his farm surveyed but could not afford to hire a surveyor. In 1923 he had five acres seeded in sweet clover and brome grass, and thirty more acres cleared and ready for seed. He also had three acres of potatoes and other vegetables. He had almost a kilometre of irrigation ditch dug from higher on the creek. That winter he was back trapping up the Macmillan River.⁴⁾

In 1925, Crosby, still on the Macmillan River, was hired by Nevill Armstrong to help him prospect and mine on Russell Creek. Crosby brought him forty pounds of potatoes he had grown from his MacMillan River garden. In 1932, a government land agent reported that Crosby had been living up the Macmillan River for years and had abandoned his Crosby Creek farm. He was at Fort Selkirk in 1932 and between then and 1937 it became his permanent home. In 1938, his cabin burned down and he barely escaped. A few days after the fire he was transported to the Dawson hospital where he lived for another four and a half years. The $425 he received for the sale of his farmhouse went to his considerable hospital debt, and he died with no personal belongings. His farmhouse was sold in 1940 to Stanley Jonathan and he dismantled it and rafted the logs to Fort Selkirk where he rebuilt it. Garnet Creek has been renamed Crosby Creek.⁵⁾

Related sources include: Frederick Selous, Recent Hunting Trips in British North America (1907); Charles Sheldon, The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon(1911); Neville Armstrong, Yukon Yesterdays (1936); and Neville Armstrong, After Big Game in the Upper Yukon (1937).