Percy Bearisto Reid (1874 – 1927)
Percy Reid was born in Prince Edward Island.1) He came to the Yukon 1898 and two years later started service with the government as a mining recorder.2) In the early days he looked after Gold Run and Dominion creeks area in the Klondike gold fields. He was the first mining recorder and land agent in the Conrad Mining District, created in August 1906 when mining activity there boomed. There were about 1,000 men around Conrad and about 200 men in the Gold Hill area of the Wheaton River. After the mining interest waned, the Conrad office was dismantled and moved to Carcross in 1909.3)
In 1921, after serving as the mining recorder in Carcross for years, Reid became the chief inspector of immigration for Canada, and also assistant controller of Chinese immigration. He sailed for the east in February and expected to be away for several months.4) After leaving the Yukon, Reid worked in the federal Department of Immigration and travelled in Japan and other places. In 1924 when he was asked to return to the Yukon, he was managing the immigration office in Vancouver.5)
After six years as Yukon’s chief executive officer, Gold Commissioner George Mackenzie had complained to Ottawa about the increased duties imposed on him by a shrinking budget and he was subsequently given a new position in Ottawa. Percy Reid was asked to become the acting Commissioner in 1924, and then became Yukon’s Gold Commissioner holding the position from 1 April 1925 to 4 November 1927 when he died while in office.6) Yukon Gold Commissioner Percy Reid died in Toronto where he gone for medical treatment.7) His wife, Gertrude Isabel Macpherson Reid, predeceased him. She was born in Chatham, Ontario and married Percy Reid in Ontario in December 1905. She came to the Yukon shortly after and died at St. Mary’s Hospital in Dawson in 1925. She was buried in Vancouver.8)
During Percy Reid’s term, the elected Council sat for a short session once a year and the budget was passed as presented by the Gold Commission with few concerns raised. There was a period of discord during the 1925 election when Liberal candidate Robert Lowe accused Reid of using government positions and contracts to assist George Black’s campaign.9)