Con Lattin
Con and Dot Lattin came to the Yukon in the early 1950s. Con worked for the grocery division of Taylor and Drury in what is now Horwood’s Mall. There was little housing available and the couple lived in a little shack where Rotary Peace Park is now. It had thin walls and no running water. Lattin found other employment with Laurent Cry, the foreman of the White Pass freight shed, and got employment for his brother Geoff as well. Their father and mother (Edward “Ted” and Mary Lattin) arrived in Whitehorse in 1953 and they also lived at Whiskey Flats. Ted had an army job when he met Lorne Scott who knew about the dairy business, and they started Whitehorse Dairies in an alley behind Main Street. Al Kulan became an investor after he received an option payment from Prospectors Airways for his Vangorda lead-zinc find.1)
The trio bought Northland Beverages from Harold Kauffman, who owned a butcher shop on Main Street, in 1956. This company had been bottling Pepsi products since 1941 when Foster Faulkener established the company in a log plant on 4th and Black Street. Whitehorse Dairies moved its operation to the Northland Beverages plant.2) Scott managed the dairy, Kulan bottled soft drinks, and Lattin managed the office. Con was working as a customs official near Beaver Creek when Kulan wanted to move on to other endeavours, so Con quit his government job and bought Kulan’s share in the business. Geoff bought Scott’s interest and Northland Beverages became a family business. Syrup was gravity fed from upstairs to fill beer bottles with Pepsi and orange Crush. Regular pop bottles were too heavy and expensive to ship along the Alaska Highway.3)
The milk processing plant was not profitable after milk was trucked in from the south. The pop-bottling facility was destroyed in a fire, but the company remained in business, diversifying into other services.4)
Con Lattin received the 2008 Yukon Historical and Museums Association’s Helen Couch Volunteer of the Year Award for his many volunteer years and service to the MacBride Museum Board of Directors. Mr. Lattin was instrumental in MacBride Museum’s renovation and is a long-time member of the MacBride Museum.5)