Roy Minter (1937 - 1996)
Roy Minter was born in England and moved to Vancouver with his family. He was a career officer in the Canadian Army and served in Korea before being posted to Whitehorse in 1955 as a captain in the administrative offices. He was involved with the Whitehorse Drama Club and wrote several radio scripts about the construction of the Alaska Highway. One was updated for the 1992 anniversary of the road and aired on CBC North. .1) Roy retired from the Army in 1957 and became special assistant to the president of the White Pass & Yukon Route. In 1958, he conceived of and directed the summer-long Klondike Gold Rush Diamond Jubilee. He and Flo Whyard produced reams of press releases promoting the Yukon. He was one of the first officers of the Yukon Visitors Association, which grew into the Tourism Industry Association of Yukon (TIAY), and a co-founder of the Dawson City Gold Rush Festival. Supported by White Pass, Roy directed and produced four northern films, two of which, Brave New North and Take Four Giant Steps won international awards.2)
Roy Minter retired from White Pass in 1974 and established a consulting firm based in Vancouver. He researched and wrote The White Pass – Gateway to the Klondike and it was published in 1987. Roy was also gifted photographer and artist. He was a founding member of the Yukon Foundation in 1980, and he established a scholarship for scholarly research and authorship of Yukon history.3)
Minter received the Commissioner’s Award for service to the Yukon in 1986 and a Yukon Historical and Museums Association Heritage Award in 1988. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1991. In 1996, Roy received the History of Civil Engineering award from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers for his documentation of the White Pass railway construction. He was a generous supporter of the Yukon Archives collection of Yukon documentary history and his pertinent research files are in the Archives collection.4)