George McKay Rose (1891 – 1962)
George Rose was born in Inverness, Scotland and came to Canada as a young man. He enlisted in the Engineers in Vancouver for service in the First World War. He served overseas where he met his wife, Gertrude Bowyer and they were married in 1920.1)
George and Gertrude Rose moved to Whitehorse in 1925 when their daughter Nancy was four years old. George had a brother working in the Whitehorse shipyards. George was an engineer and he soon got a job.2) George Rose worked on the river steamers Keno and Whitehorse among other riverboats, and he was the engineer on the S.S. Tutshi for thirty years.3)
The Roses went out to Vancouver in the fall of 1926 and stayed there for the winter. George went back up in the spring, but his wife stayed in Vancouver until daughter Gertrude was born. She was fifteen days old in 1928 when she and her mother arrived in Carcross. Gertrude started school at age five in an old garage next to George Simmon's house.4)
When the SS Tutshi was out of the water in 1954, George Rose went to the Whitehorse federal building as first engineer. After he retired, he worked at the Whitehorse Inn for some time. In 1960/61, he was captain of the diesel-powered MV Schwatka excursion boat that ran through Miles Canyon.5)