William Rupe (~1866 – 1937)
William Rupe was born in Santa Rosa, California.1) He and a partner explored the Stewart River in 1893. They found gold on the bank on the Mayo River above the mouth of Mayo Creek.2)
The North-West Mounted Police noted W.S. Rupe’s entry back into the Yukon through Lake Bennet in May 1898. In 1906, W.S. Rupe was at Stewart City, at the mouth of the Stewart River. There were several mining claims in the Stewart River and Dawson area registered in his name.3)
At the turn of the century, Bill Rupe was lost and hungry in the borderland of the western Yukon. He was found by Chajäktà, a First Nation man from the Scottie Creek area. While Rupe was recovering over the winter, he taught Chajäktà and his son how to speak English. Chajäktà proposed a partnership where he would guide Rupe back to Dawson to trade Chajäktà’s winter furs and purchase a trading outfit so they could open a store in the upper Scottie Creek area. The resulting trading post was successful for both men. Rev. O’Meara reported Rupe’s presence on a branch of the Tanana River where Rupe was trading with the Copper people and others who travelled about 400km up the Tanana to reach the post.4)
Andy Frank told archaeologist Norm Easton that his father and Bill Rupe were partners for about ten years. They used an old-time motorboat to bring freight up to the head of the Ladue River and then used horses to move the freight over to the head of Pepper Lake. Black fox furs were high in price at that time. Rupe and a Tanana woman, Annie John, had a country marriage.5)
In 1908, the Yukon/Alaska border went right through the village where Rupe’s post was located. Rupe helped negotiate with the chief of Survey, W.B. Reaburn, to allow the survey crew passage through the Dineh village of Ts’oogot Gaay and an agreement that the Dineh could continue to live there without interference and occupy the region on both sides of the new boundary. Reaburn signed a paper to that effect that Rupe kept in a red book that he left with Chajäktà.6)
Around 1910, Bill and Annie’s daughter Maggie was about ten years old when Bill Rupe took her to the Sisters of St. Anne school in Dawson. Annie John travelled to Dawson and appealed to the court to have her daughter returned to her, but her request was refused. Rupe left the Scottie Creek valley to trap and prospect from the Klondike to the White River and he died in Dawson. Maggie left Dawson in 1927 and graduated from St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in Victoria in 1930. She worked at St; Joseph Hospital until her retirement in 1956 and rose to oversee the nursing staff of the maternity ward. She married an affluent man named Arthur but asked the nuns to keep her married name and address confidential.7)