Yukon who is who

Weldon McKenzie Pinchin (1935 - 2017)

Weldon Pinchin moved to Whitehorse from Vancouver with his family when he was eight years old. He left high school to get a job.¹⁾ In 1949, Weldon worked on the MV Loon, a British Yukon Navigation Co. motor launch that took soundings on the Yukon River for the company’s fleet of sternwheelers. Weldon liked stories and jokes, and one time wedged an old boiler into a sandbar at the head of Lake Laberge to convince tourists on the SS Klondike that it was where Robert Service’s Sam McGee was incinerated.²⁾

In Vancouver, Pinchin owned a couple of successful service stations and was named BC’s Service magazine’s Man of the Year. He and his wife built a hotel on Mayne Island and, when the business and the marriage failed, he sailed around the world. In later years, he ran an investment business out of his Mayne home and travelled to lecture on a variety of subjects.³⁾ Pinchin was employed by the Great Pacific Management Co. Ltd in 1988 as a mutual fund salesman. He remained in this position until at least 1992.⁴⁾