Harold O. Lokken
Harold Lokken was of Norwegian heritage and came to the Yukon about 1904 from Wisconsin where he had trained as a cabinet maker.1) He first went into the woodcutting business with Albert Hendrickson, near the village of Big Salmon. When the government put in a telegraph line and a Northwest Mounted Police post at the Big Salmon, Lokken became the lineman between there and Yukon Crossing.2) The Big Salmon telegraph building was moved to Carmacks by raft in 1915. This was joined with a rear addition made with a building moved from Yukon Crossing in the same year. Lokken surrounded the station with a picket fence while he waited for the regular operator, Howard MacMillan, to arrive. Lokken then returned to Yukon Crossing where he was working.3) Lokken operated the telegraph and ran the Yukon Crossing roadhouse.4) He was known for making excellent snowshoes.5)
By 1919, Lokken was guiding hunting parties out of Carmacks. He was a summer guide for the American multi-millionaire Packard who on doctor’s orders took an annual trip north to get fresh air. Their base camp was Packard Point on Quiet Lake. Packard fished and his son and Lokken hunted and took photographs. Packard had a number of rifles made to his design and two were given to Lokken.6) Lokken was a gun collector and spent much time making handmade hardwood gun stocks.7)
Harold Lokken dismantled the cable ferry at Yukon Crossing in 1929.8) He took up permanent residency in Carmacks and built one of the finest residences in the area.9) In 1931, Hugh Bostock was entertained at Lokken’s cabin at Carmacks. Lokken was retired but still busy. He designed and built his twenty-four-foot riverboat, the Rio Rita. Guns were his hobby, and he had a 200-yard-long rifle range with shooting platforms every fifty yards. He made his own walnut stocks, and his rifles were made to order.10)
Mount Lokken and Lokken Creek are located east of Carmacks.