Will DeWolfe (1908 – 1993)
Will DeWolfe was born in Dawson, the son of famous mail carrier Percy DeWolfe. The DeWolfes had a fish camp about twenty-five miles downriver from Dawson and the family spent most of their summers there. Will remembers they kept the horses in the big stables at the fish camp, or Halfway Camp. They had two horses and Will drove one while his dad drove the other. In the summer they hauled freight with thirty-foot boats equipped with twenty-five-horsepower motors. In the 1930s, Will used to haul passengers on dog team sleds between Dawson and Walkers Fork in the Fortymile. His route took him via Steele and Canyon creeks. He ran nine big huskies when he was hauling by dog team. It took two days to take two passengers up the tough climb to Walkers Forks but it was faster coming back with an empty sled.1)
Will had many jobs including working on the dredges near Dawson. He watched the stacker belt where the tailings went out. They had four men to a shift: a winchman, oiler, and two deckmen, one in the bow and one in the stern. Will also worked on road crews, building portions of the Taylor Highway from Tetlin Junction to Eagle. When he was not working on the roads, Will would trap twenty-five miles up the Fifteenmile River. It was high country with a lot of fox, marten and beaver. He also did some prospecting and discovered asbestos up there and on Cassiar and Clinton creeks. He was called the Asbestos King. He found another outcropping across from Halfway House. Consolidated West took over his mines at Cassiar Creek for $10,000. In later years, Will worked security for [the Yukon Government] at Forty Mile Historic Site, using Swanson's General Store as his office.2)