Yukon who is who

John Ormrod Livesey (1911 – 2005)

John Livesey was born in Manchester, England and moved to Canada as a youth.¹⁾ He was a member of the Merchant Marine during the Second World War and served on a number of ships.²⁾

John and his wife Freda ran Livesey's Highway Services on the eastern outskirts of Beaver Creek. Freda was a war bride and a well-educated trained secretary working at one of Britain's largest shipping firms when John met her.³⁾ Their property was a camp built during the construction of the Alaska Highway. John converted the buildings in 1949. The store had everything: post office, groceries, hardware, clothing, ammunition, guns, and lots more. If he didn’t have it, he would order it for you. The business was originally called the Beaver Creek Trading Company.⁴⁾

Livesey served on the territorial Council from 1958 to 1964 and from 1967 to 1970. He was elected in the Carmacks – Kluane District and served as the Speaker of the House.⁵⁾ In 1971, the federal government allowed the Yukon to have a Minister of Education. Livesey was used to speaking on matter of education and was sure that he would be the first to hold the office. However, he was defeated in the [1970] election by Hilda Watson, a schoolteacher from Haines Junction and a well-known Yukoner. She became the Yukon's first Minister of Education. Livesey took defeat hard and to help him his wife persuaded him to close down the store and gas pump and take a long vacation. The store was closed early in the winter of 1971 and stayed closed well into the following spring.⁶⁾ Livesey ran against Watson in the 1974 Yukon general election but was again defeated. He challenged the count on the basis that twenty-six ineligible voters had cast ballots and that number exceeded Watson’s seventeen-vote margin of victory. Watson resigned and then won the by-election. Livesey ran again in 1978 as an Independent candidate in Kluane. Both he and Watson lost to Liberal Alice McGuire.⁷⁾

Freda Livesey died in 1979. John continued to run the store until 1983 and then retired to Comox, British Columbia.⁸⁾ John Livesey was recorded during his term in office.⁹⁾