Scurvey Shorty, Ketsotthe (Tutchone) and Kajani (Tlingit) (1928 - 2004)
Scurvey Shorty was born at Big Salmon to parents Lena George and Ernie “Little” Shorty.1) Scurvey recalled hard times in the Big Salmon area in 1935 when there was lots of snow and the animals were hard to get. His family moved to hunt and fish around Whitehorse, Fish Lake, Grey Mountain, and Cap Mountain. They trapped where the industrial area is today.2)
Scurvey met his wife, Violet, in the late 1940s and they moved to Whiskey Flats in Whitehorse around 1949. He built his first house in the shipyard area, but the government was forcing First Nation people out of their homes there. In 1954, the Shorty's moved to the Old Village to a new log home built by Scurvey. He trapped across the Yukon River. He worked at Reg Wilson's Lock Block Plant near his house about 1955, building thousands of bricks and cement blocks. Violet and Scurvey Shorty have eight children.3)
Scurvey Shorty was a councilor, with John McGundy, when Bill Smith served as the first chief of the Whitehorse Indian Band (WIB). The Department of Indian Affairs amalgamated groups of Tagish Kwan and other Status Indians into the Whitehorse Band in 1956. The process ignored traditional territories and leadership practices and existed as an administrative convenience. Smith, Shorty, and McGundy served as unpaid advisors in the administration. They worked hard to bring problems of overcrowding, sub-standard housing, polluted water, and lack of sanitation to the department’s attention. Scurvey Shorty became chief when the first WIB elections were held in 1965. He was succeeded by Elijah Smith who was elected in 1967.4)
After his tenure with the WIB, Scurvey continued to work for his community and was a foreman and Elder advisor to the crew renovating the former Elders’ Complex in the new village.5)