Jerry Kruse (b. ~1943)
Jerry Kruse moved from Minnesota to the Yukon in 1973. He was persuaded to move by his brother-in-law who fell in love with the Yukon on his honeymoon. Jerry was a journeyman carpenter. He and his wife Kathy started off running a lodge in Teslin, near their immediate family, and then moved up the highway. In the late 1970s, the Kruses ran McCabe Creek Lodge. In the low season they packed their ten kids into a trapline cabin fifty kilometres out and spent winters in the bush.1)
The first year of the Quest dogsled race, in 1984, they asked if they should open the lodge and were told not to bother. The second year they were at the lodge and got an hour's notice that the mushers were coming. They all piled into the house and the Kruse daughters started baking bread and cookies. That was the beginning of a long tradition. When they sold the lodge in 1989 and moved into the farm about a kilometre away, they passed on the tradition to the new owners. After a year, the lodge went under and the mushers started stopping at the farm instead. Kruse’s eight daughters grew and moved away but many came back for the Quest. The mushers use the workshop as a rest stop but have to stop at the house for hot water.2)
In 2007, Jerry was semi-retired but still raised broiler chickens, hogs, and horses. When he got the horses, he got out of dogs, but he and Kathy still had the trapline and kept thinking of going back into that. They had never lived in a place with electricity and when the power lines started coming up the highway Jerry thought that he might have to move back to the trapline cabin.3)
In 2009, the large workshop at the farm burned to the ground. It had served as a dog drop and rest stop during the Quest for about twenty years. Kruse built the 36” x 50’ structure in 1990. It housed the Yukon Arctic Ultra racers, mushers, and veterinarians during the race. Five Ultra racers had just left when the fire started, likely in the attached generator shed.4)