George Dale
George Dale had lived in a cabin a mile or so outside of Carcross where he raised mink for many years. He was a prospector when he was young and had staked some claims at the old Comstock Mine in Virginia City, Nevada with two partners when he was sixteen. They made $240,000 between them. Later, he and a partner got $120,000 for some iron ore claims in Montana. The money lasted about three years. Then he came to Carcross and sold some old Venus Mine claims to Colonel Conrad for $42,000. He travelled to Las Vegas and then wanted to go back to the Yukon, but he still had money left. So he took out $1,000 in dimes and threw it up in the air at a busy intersection. He had the traffic tied up for a day. Joyce and Gordon Yardley convinced him to move close to them in Carcross so they could look after him. He was content to stay inside with his books and wood heater. George was not much on cleaning. His lamp chimney was black with soot and there was only a path swept clean from the bed to the kitchen table, around the stove and wood box and to the door. Either side of the path was a 3' wall of wood chips, tin cans, newspapers and debris. George never changed his long underwear until Yardley convinced him to boil them in lye and they dissolved. George's legs got bad when he was ninety-five and he had to move to Whitehorse where they looked after him at the hospital. His mind was sharp, and he lived to be six months short of one hundred.1)