Athol Christina Retallack (1918 - 1993)
Athol Retallack was born in England.1) She and husband Tom moved north to the Stewart River in 1943. The family also lived in Mayo, Dawson, and Whitehorse.2)
Athol Retallack lived in Dawson between 1955 to 1968. She was a member of the Nutty Club, a group of women volunteers who published the monthly Klondike Korner using a Gestetner machine. She was a member of the Eastern Star and of the Anglican Church where she played the organ. She established the Klondike Toastmistress Club in 1960 and they met at the Occidental Hotel operated by Ole Christiansen. She was very involved with the Klondike Visitors Association. She was awarded a lifetime membership with the Dawson City Museum in 1976.3) Athol and Tom Retallack participated in planning the restoration of the Palace Grande Theatre and worked on the staging of the Dawson City Gold Rush Festival in 1962.4)
Retallack wrote feature articles for the Whitehorse Star, Canadian Press and Time.5) She was the first Canadian non-staff correspondent to have her own byline in Time magazine and this when Dawson did not have long-distance telephone service to the outside.6) She taped interviews with Dawson and Whitehorse old-timers for the CBC and the stories were broadcast weekly for the Yukon and on national radio in such programs as “Trans-Canada Matinee.”7) Her CBC series from the 1960s and ‘70s always started with “This is Athol Retallack from Dawson City.”8) Her collection of sound recordings at the Yukon Archives consists of twenty-four reel-to-reel sound recordings and one audio cassette from this era.9) Athol Retallack was interviewed by Cal Waddington for Parks and Historic Sites, July - September 1978.10)
In 1979, the family moved to Abbottsford, British Columbia. After her death, Athol’s ashes were buried in the Masonic cemetery in Dawson.11)