Jesse Cooke
Jesse Cooke grew up in Windsor, Ontario. He travelled to Kluane Lake in 2005 as part of his University of Ottawa studies in glaciology. He became a teacher and took contract work in Dawson as a subject teacher or educational assistant. In 2011, the Klondike Development Organization held a forum on ground transportation. At the time there was no taxi service in town, no service to the airport unless you were staying in a major hotel, and no place to rent a vehicle or bicycle. Grayline had pulled out years before so there was no way of taking the bus from Whitehorse to Dawson. Jesse acquired two 15-passenger vans, picked up and dropped off his passengers at the Front Street Gazebo and did all his bookings by cell phone. By the end of the season, he was the Dawson Chamber of Commerce New Business of 2011. He added town tours, Midnight Dome tours, all-day sight-seeing excursions to Tombstone, and special charters to Whitehorse. He started renting bicycles operating out of a store on Front Street. He then bought two 20-passenger busses, and a house on Second Avenue became the new Husky Bus HQ. In 2015, he earned the Parks Canada Youth Tourism Entrepreneur Award. Some of his seasonal success was based on activities that Holland America no longer ran the town and Dome tour and some of the Tombstone trips.1)