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James A. Ritchie
Captain James A. Ritchie was born in Britain. He was an experienced ship master and pilot on the Mississippi River before he was hired by Francis Rattenbury in 1898 for the Bennett Lake and Klondyke Navigation Co. fleet of small river sternwheelers.1)
After the sternwheeler Prospector was built in Whitehorse in 1901 by a prominent Victoria boat builder, Capt. James A. Ritchie was given command. The Prospector pioneered service on the Stewart River and made the first attempts to navigate the Pelly and Macmillan rivers. William E. Meed [Yukon Dock Company] took photographs along these routes, and downstream on the Yukon River to Eagle, Alaska, a route later served by the Prospector. Meed complied a collection of over 200 photographs of the region and it is held at the University of Washington Libraries.2)
A Mr. Ritchie [unrelated?] was the manager of the Five Finger Coal Co. He located and recorded a number of claims on the left limit a few miles south of Five Fingers. Coal was also being mined at Five Fingers on a small scale.3) Ritchie's