Bruce Sung (1916 – 2005)
Bruce Sung was born and raised in Vancouver’s Chinatown. His father, Lambert Sung, was a scholar and linguist in China before he immigrated to Canada in 1909.1) It was during the head tax era, but he didn’t have to pay it because he was working as a translator with the Chinese Consulate.2)
During the Second World War, Bruce expanded his business outside the Vancouver community to cater to the United States military in Prince Rupert. After that he founded Sung Pacific Holdings to bring fresh vegetables from California to Vancouver. In the late 1940s, he established Columbia Caterers to supply food and operate the mess halls for United Keno Hill Mines at Keno and Canadian Tungsten Mines near Watson Lake.3)
Sung was contracted by Brodie Hicks at United Keno to run the Elsa kitchen. The employed kitchen cooks had become problem drinkers, but there was never a drunk or missing-in-action cook after Sung and his camp manager Jimmie Wong took over. Sung’s company took over all the housekeeping details of the camp. The mining company did not have success growing vegetables at Elsa so they put in three large greenhouses near their coal mine at Tantalus Butte on the Yukon River. Sung’s company was entrusted with operating them, and he selected an experienced Chinese gardener who planted all three with Bok Choy. It was a tasty vegetable but not well-received by the miners.4)
In Whitehorse, Sung leased the Tourist Services restaurant and operated as Columbia Caterers. In 1954, he bought out the Tourist Services partners. Sung made a deal with Poole Construction, who was building the Whitehorse Rapids Dam, and they built a modern supermarket on the Tourist Services property in 1957.5) The new supermarket opened in 1962 with Jim Smith as the manager.6) Sung was an absentee boss, operating out of Vancouver. The Sung organization bought all the supplies through their wholesale outfit, Pacific Produce. The store made more money in a day than they had in a month before the dam construction. The well-established and well-funded Northern Commercial Company was no competition and went out of business in Whitehorse.7)
By 1965/66, Sung was ready to get out of the grocery business in Whitehorse and sold out to Kelly Douglas who built the Quanlin Mall and used a large building across Ogilvie Street as their warehouse.8) Bruce Sung also leased the Whitehorse Inn for five years, ending in 1965.((Whitehorse Star (Whitehorse), 15 May 1965.)) Bruce Sung never moved to the Yukon as a permanent resident but he spent more than three decades operating a wide range of enterprises including Tourist Services, Northern Caterers, General Catering Services Ltd., and Dianne Hotels.9)