Willard Leroy “Deacon” Phelps (1867 - 1951)
Willard Phelps was born in Ontario and took his law degree at Osgood Hall in Toronto. He came to the Yukon in 1898 with three men he met in Vancouver including George Geddes, who afterward settled in the Teslin area. They were nervous about meeting Soapy Smith in Skagway, so they left their ship in Wrangell and went up the Stikine River to Levettown and Teslin Lake. They used their horses to haul freight for other stampeders and in the fall of 1898 built a barge big enough to haul their ten tons of supplies. At Teslin, they heard about a strike on the Big Salmon River, so they poled up the Nisutlin River for about forty miles. Geddes fell in love with a First Nation woman [Annie Sidney] and married her to stay in Teslin until his death in 1958.1)
In December 1898 a party of nineteen men were just downstream from Big Salmon Lake where they built cabins for the winter. Some of the party turned back in the spring but Willard and the rest floated down to Yukon River arriving on May 29. Dawson was already big, with four judges and twenty-three lawyers so he sold his outfit and worked on the steamers running between Dawson and Whitehorse. In the fall of 1899, he went to Atlin and ran a hotel and tended bar for the winter. In 1900, he moved to Whitehorse and established a law practice and was the only lawyer in town for many years.2)
The Yukon Electrical Company was incorporated in 1901 to construct and operate, in any place in the Yukon, one or more systems of light, heat, and power. The directors were John Boyd, Arthur Gordon Smith, and Jay Wiley. Lawyer Willard Leroy Phelps handled the legal work. Jay Wiley left the territory in 1905, and Willard Phelps took over management of the company.3)
In 1909, 2,700 men voted for the first wholly elected Yukon Council. Willard Phelps and Robert Lowe took the two Whitehorse seats and, although there were no parties at that time, the Dawson News announced the election results as a Liberal majority. Phelps served as a member of the Yukon legislative assembly from 1909 to 1920, from 1925 to 1934, and again from 1940 to 1944.4)
Fred Gray was hired by the Yukon Electrical Company as an electrician in 1913. The year after he came to town, he and Phelps plus Charlie French, the night operator at the plant and an old riverboat steam man, bought out the shareholders and became the owners of the company.5) The first power plant was located on the west bank of the Yukon River, north of the White Pass train station in Whitehorse. The steam engine had a peak output of twenty kilowatts of 220-volt direct current power. Customers were put on meters at a rate of $1 for the first Kw.h and 40 cents per Kw.h after that. Power was supplied from the time it got dark, as determined by the plant operator, until 11:30 pm or midnight.6) Phelps eventually became the sole owner and manager of the Yukon Electrical Co., while continuing to maintain his law office.7)
Phelps was connected to many enterprises and the establishment of a Whitehorse church, although he was not a religious man.8) The minister quit in frustration after Phelps told him that while he saw the value of having a church, he felt to need to personally attend services.9) After that, Willard became known as “Deacon” Phelps. He helped many people in Whitehorse when they were down on their luck.10)
When the Dawson population began to dwindle, the very expensive winter transportation service to Dawson could no longer be supported. The contract was worth less and less. Greenfield and Pickering, who succeeded White Pass & Yukon Route, operated as Klondike Airways Ltd. although they never owned a plane. Many of the roadhouses closed and the horses and stages were replaced by tractor trains.11) Arrangements were made with Treadwell Yukon to lease one of their planes. In October 1928, a notice in the Dawson Weekly News announced that scheduled and passenger flights between Dawson, Mayo and Whitehorse would commence immediately. Greenfield and Pickering lost the contract and terminated their Overland Trail operations in 1929. On February 12, 1930, a second company, also called Klondike Airways under the directorship of TC Richards and Willard Phelps continued the arrangement initiated by Greenfield and Pickering. The planes were owned by Treadwell Yukon and Phelps’ name was used because he was Treadwell Yukon's attorney and a resident Yukon Agent.12)
T.C. Richards and W.L. Phelps ran a weekly land service. Their equipment was not very reliable; small D-2 Caterpillar tractors for most of the work and a couple of larger ones as well. The tractors had no cabs and the drivers were happy with this as they feared getting trapped if the cats went through the river ice. They went five miles per hour when pulling their loads along the flat stretches and this was considered fast.13) Klondike Airways Ltd. was awarded the contract for mail delivery between Whitehorse and Dawson in August 1933.14) In January 1934, A fire completely destroyed the garage of the Klondike Airways Ltd., the Dawson-Whitehorse mail carrier. The loss included tools, equipment, and freight.15)
Only two Yukon lawyers resided and practiced principally outside of Dawson City. Phelps maintained a law office in Whitehorse until 1949. T.W. Jackson practiced first in Dawson and then in Whitehorse from 1903 to 1906. None of the post-Klondike lawyers practiced in the territory beyond the early 1920s. George Black, A.E. Lamb, W.L. Phelps, and J.P. Smith retained their bar memberships into the 1940s.16)