Yukon who is who

Nathaniel B. Raymond (b. 1855)

Nathaniel Raymond entered the Yukon over the Chilkoot Pass from Digby, Nova Scotia in 1899.¹⁾ Captain Raymond owned two small sternwheelers that were built in Whitehorse and operated on the Yukon River in the early 1900s. He was Master of the small sternwheeler Clara in 1900.²⁾

Bill MacBride, the great authority on the Yukon riverboats, thought that Raymond’s steamer Olive May was sold and renamed the Dora in 1899.³⁾ However, the Olive May continues to appear as an independent steamer owned by Raymond. In the early days of the gold rush, the Olive May competed with the Bennett Lake and Klondyke Navigation Company’s fleet of three small boats on the Tagish Lake run to Taku Landing and the connection to Atlin Lake.⁴⁾ Captain Raymond was registered as the Master of the Olive May in 1906.⁵⁾

The little sternwheeler Pauline was built in Whitehorse for Captain Raymond in 1907. The Pauline was named for Pauline Raymond.⁶⁾ After the Pauline was completed it went immediately to Dawson and in 1908 was doing a good business on Yukon River tributaries.⁷⁾ Raymond was listed as the captain of the Pauline in the Polk’s Directory of 1909-1910. In 1911, the Pauline, owned by Captain N. B. Raymond and his son John of Whitehorse, struck a rock near Big Salmon and, while delayed several hours while repairs were made, reached Dawson in good shape.⁸⁾

In 1912, the independent steamers Vidette and Pauline tried to operate after the middle of October but were frozen in at the Indian River.⁹⁾ During the Chisana gold rush in 1913, the Vidette arrived in Dawson from a trip eighty miles up the White River where she left the Pauline to relay the barge and freight to Donjek.¹⁰⁾ The Pauline was wrecked by running ice at Sunnydale Slough in Dawson in the spring of 1916.¹¹⁾