Yukon who is who

Jim Miller

Jim Miller was born at Goddard Point near the north end of Lake Laberge to parents Elsie and Jim Miller. Dennis Broeren and Jim Sam and their families also lived in the small community. The telegraph station at Lower Laberge sold some hardware and groceries and the Mounted Police had a station nearby on the west side of the lake. The family moved into Whitehorse in 1940 and Jim and his siblings attended public school. They spent the winter of 1942/43 in the big slough just south of Lake Laberge where they were caretakers for the sternwheelers Casca and Klondike. White Pass feared that a Japanese attack during the Second World War would destroy the fleet if all the boats were kept in one place. In 1943, the family moved back to Whitehorse and in 1944, Jim’s mother died of tuberculosis after a stay in the TB wing of the old hospital on Second Avenue. Young Jim also contracted TB and spent time in a sanitorium in southern Manitoba. He started working as crew on the riverboats when he was fourteen and later moved to the company’s highway division, in all spending more than twenty-seven years working for White Pass. He married Judy Pasechnik and, in time, became a Ta’an Kwach’an Elder.¹⁾