Tip “Tippy” Mah
Tip Mah owned the Belvedere Hotel in Watson Lake in 1965.1) He came to the Yukon after seeing a sign saying “young men go north.” Mah moved to Whitehorse in the late 1970s. The Bonanza Hotel and the T and M were built and later sold by Mah.2) Mah purchased the historic Cyr House in Whitehorse in the 1960s as a staff residence for his restaurant employees.3)
In February 2007, Mah, heading a Vancouver-based holding company, purchased the Pioneer Inn and then had a dispute with the Yukon Liquor Corporation. Mah refused to make changes to the building as he planned to tear it down. Joe English wanted a short-term licence extension on his bar in the building to take him through the summer. They thought they had eight months to a year but last call at Joe's came with less than two hours notice when his liquor licence ran out. English had paid his lease to the end of March and lost the income from the last two weeks of the month. The last two weekends were the bread and butter in the business. Other businesses in the hotel, the Blue Moon Saloon and a beer and wine off-sales, were also affected. The steel foot rail from Joe’s bar was donated to MacBride Museum. English was finished after pouring stiff drinks for Whitehorse patrons for twenty-eight years.4) The site on Second Avenue became the home of Mah’s Point Condos, the only steel and concrete condo building in Whitehorse.5)
In 2008, Mah donated $1000,000 to the Whitehorse General Hospital Foundation toward the purchase of a $1.5 million CT scanner. He commented that the Yukon has been good to him and it was time to give some back. Mah was known to reporters as a man who loved to gamble. All four of his children were born in Whitehorse.6) Mah is, or has been, the president and board member of a number of businesses in Yukon including the Belvedere Motel in Watson Lake, the Taku Hotel, the 202 Motor Inn, and a condo building on Second Avenue? [source] In 2020, Tip Mah is president of 10532 Yukon Ltd., an independent corporation with office at the 202 Motor Inn. The company was incorporated in 1992 and has thirty-two employees.7)