Yukon who is who

William Samuel “Sam” McGee (1867 - 1940)

Sam McGee was born in Lindsay, Ontario. He was in San Francisco when he heard about the Klondike gold rush, and he travelled north from there.¹⁾ McGee arrived in Skagway in the fall of 1898 and started hauling freight over the White Pass. Captain John Irving hired him to transport material to build the sternwheeler Gleaner and the job took all winter. Sam's crews took material to Bennett Lake and other crews assembled the boat which was launched on 2 May 1899. Sam continued north and worked as a teamster on the tramway at Miles Canyon before heading to Dawson. He worked for wages for two years in the Klondike mines and then returned to Ontario and married Ruth Warnes.²⁾ They settled in Whitehorse and in 1899 McGee built a small cabin.³⁾ They lived at Third and Elliot until 1907 when Sam had a larger house built on the current site of the historic Cyr House. This is the house that was later moved to the MacBride Museum yard.⁴⁾

In 1899, McGee staked the War Eagle claim in the Whitehorse Copper Belt. The mine was not developed until Caldwell, Poyntz, Lucas and Kesler took it over in 1907.⁵⁾ At one time, Sam McGee had a deed to land in Conrad City and an interest in the mining nearby. He was a partner in the War Eagle claim, the Leroy claim, and the Leroy extension in the copper belt with Robert Lowe and James Lauderdale.⁶⁾

Between 1904 and 1906, McGee worked building southern Yukon roads including the Whitehorse-Carcross wagon road, the Conrad-Carcross wagon road, the road to War Eagle in the Copper Belt, and sections of the Whitehorse-Kluane wagon road.⁷⁾ His friend, Robert Lowe, wrote “Mr. McGee was the pioneer road builder for the Yukon Government in the southern Yukon and was and is considered by everyone the best the territory ever had, having a natural genius for that kind of work.”⁸⁾

McGee and partner Gilbert Skelly were among the first freighters to participate in the rush to the Kluane Lake gold camps.⁹⁾ In 1904, they were running a roadhouse at Canyon River on the trail to Bullion and Ruby creeks. They built a bridge across Canyon River for travel during high water.¹⁰⁾ According to Josie Sias the bridge construction was done in the winter to minimize problems.¹¹⁾ They eventually leased the Canon Roadhouse to Edwin and Bessie Gideon.¹²⁾

When silver was discovered about fifty miles south of Whitehorse in 1905 there was a rush to Montana Mountain and McGee used political influence to be named foreman of a government project to build roads to the new mines. He staked claims on the mountain.¹³⁾ On August 13, 1905, John Sullivan went to Carcross to start laying out a road to the lower terminal of Conrad's tramway. Five days later, foreman Sam McGee and twenty men started work on the eleven-mile road. The men got $4 a day plus board and McGee made $5 and board. A wooden bridge was constructed upstream from the railway bridge under the direction of Robert Henry MacDonald, who formerly operated the Overland Trail MacDonald Roadhouse on the Nordenskiold River.¹⁴⁾ McGee also worked at Racine's sawmill on Tagish Lake, providing lumber to Conrad.¹⁵⁾

By 1907, McGee was a prominent Whitehorse resident. Children, Emily and Barney, were born in the community.¹⁶⁾ There was a little steamer called the “Alice May” [Olive May] beached on an island in the centre of Lake Laberge. Robert Service was always doing a lot of roaming around and he got his inspiration for the poem when he ran across the “Alice May” and Sam McGee freighting on the lake in the bitter cold weather.¹⁷⁾ McGee’s name was used by Robert Service in the poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” published in 1907 as part of Service’s collection The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses. In 1938, McGee noticed Yukon tourists buying urns of “genuine ashes of Sam McGee.”¹⁸⁾

For many years, McGee was responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges in southern Yukon.¹⁹⁾ In 1908, McGee had a road gang working on the government wagon road from Whitehorse to Carcross.²⁰⁾ However, the Yukon economy was in decline and the family moved away in 1909. McGee kept an interest in the War Eagle and LeRoi mines in the Whitehorse Copper Belt.²¹⁾ He returned to the Yukon for a visit in 1916.²²⁾ He sold his Whitehorse house and property to the Cyr family in 1923.²³⁾

In 1938, Sam, Ruth and their five children were living in Great Fall, Montana. Sam was building highways and was involved in at least one mine. He visited the Yukon in 1938 and celebrated his 70th birthday mining on Burwash Creek with Dick Corless. Sam McGee died in Beiseker, Alberta and is buried at Rosebud. The cabin the McGees lived in in Whitehorse was preserved in 1940 and later moved to the MacBride Museum grounds.²⁴⁾