Yukon who is who

Frank Sketch (1878 – 1946)

Frank Sketch was born near Victoria, British Columbia, the fourth of five children in a farming family. His parent died within three months of each other and George Skelly, a prominent Victoria businessman, was named guardian. In 1903, Frank Sketch was working in Whitehorse as a bartender in the Grand Hotel at Front and Main. In 1908, he married Elsie and they bought a lot in town and presumably built a house. Frank stayed a bartender until 1912 and then made his way to the Kluane area and set up a trading post at Kloo Lake.¹⁾

Sketch’s Kloo Lake location was on the west side of the lake about halfway along. It was five km off the Kluane Wagon Road, within one km of a First Nations village, and on the trail to the mining areas at Ruby and Fourth of July creeks. In the fall of 1919, Sketch was working for Baxter’s outfitting business.²⁾ In May 1921, R.M. Grant, a private banker in New York City, brought his son on one of Baxter’s guided hunting trips. Baxter’s team consisted of T.A. Dickson of Kluane, Charles H. Baxter, Ole Dickson, and Frank Sketch. That was the first hunting trip of a season that was expected to be quite busy.³⁾

In 1921, Sketch was single, and a partner with Ole Dickson in a summer mining operation on one of the nearby creeks. In the 1930s, he purchased the nearby Bear Creek roadhouse and operated it for a few years.⁴⁾ George McIntosh purchased the Bear Creek Roadhouse sometime in the early 1930s.⁵⁾

Sketch lost an eye when he and Jimmy Joe and Jack Allen were hauling supplies from Whitehorse on the Kluane Wagon Road. The log bridge on the Mendenhall River collapsed under the weight of the loaded wagon pulled by four horses, and one tied on the back. Sketch was kicked in the face and his eye was hanging out. The men tied it back in place and put him on a spare horse. He went fourteen kilometres to Steamboat Landing where he hoped to get help. He later went outside the Yukon and returned with a glass eye.⁶⁾

Beginning in 1923, vehicles traffic was possible west of the Jarvis River and Sketch had a 1928 Model A Ford ¾ ton truck with dual wheels and a flat deck. During the construction of the Alaska Highway his store and the store at Bear Creek (MacIntosh’s lodge) were the only stores in the area. Haines Junction got its first store in the late 1940s.⁷⁾

Harry Eskrigge was Sketch’s neighbour on the west shore of Kloo Lake. He had been in the Kluane area since 1912, and he looked after the store when Sketch had to travel. In 1947, Sketch travelled to Vancouver with cancer and gangrene. He had surgery but died and is buried in Victoria. Dorothy MacIntosh, at Bear Creek Lodge, arranged for Eskrigge to manage to store and then purchased all of the trading post buildings and contents and closed the post. Sketch’s house in Whitehorse was occupied rent-free by Charlie Baxter’s widow. Sketch’s Kloo Lake trading post location is now on Champagne and Aishihik settlement land.⁸⁾