Yukon who is who

Alfred Thompson (1869 – 1940)

Alfred Thompson was born in Nine Mile River, Nova Scotia to parents James A. and Jane Thompson. He graduated from Dalhousie University with a medical degree in 1898. He moved to Dawson in 1899 where he practiced medicine.¹⁾

In 1898, J. M. Walsh, Commander of the Yukon District, appointed Inspector Starnes, Messrs. D. W. Davis, F. C. Wade, H. A. Bliss, and Drs. Thompson and Richardson as the town committee for Dawson. The committee saw that the public streets and riverbanks were kept clear of all obstructions in the shape of buildings, caches, tents, sale goods and stands, wood piles, and obstacles of all kinds. They were to have the street lines properly located and see that that was observed. They were to see cleanliness was observed and generally to bring about sanitary conditions in the town. He empowered the committee to decide by resolution on a majority vote what steps to carry out with the assistance of the NWMP.²⁾ Thompson was appointed the police health office in Dawson to prevent an outbreak of disease.³⁾ In July 1900, the officers of “B” Division in Dawson included Scarth, Inspector Z.T. Wood, Inspector H.H. Routledge, Inspector C. Starnes, and acting Surgeon Dr. A. Thompson.⁴⁾ Thompson was elected to the Yukon Council in 1902.⁵⁾

In February 1904, O'Brien and six other prominent Dawson businessmen incorporated the O'Brien Brewing and Malting Co. Ltd. It was also known as the Klondike Brewery. It operated brewing, malting, bottling and associated credit, real estate, and promotional ventures. The owners included Edward “Black” Sullivan and prominent Liberal Dr. Alfred Thompson.⁶⁾

Thompson was elected as Yukon’s representative to the Canadian House of Commons for the first time in 1904.⁷⁾ He spoke often against the granting of hydraulic mining concessions as they discouraged individual miners by tying up huge tracts of valuable land. He wanted to change the Yukon Council from five appointed and five elected members to a wholly elected Council, presided over by the Commissioner. The Minister of the Interior, Frank Oliver, visited the territory in August 1905 to access the territory.⁸⁾

In 1905, James Haddock obtained a hydraulic concession on Dublin Gulch that included all of the ground, except Suttles, on the short creek. Dr. W.E. Thompson took over the concession in December 1908 and he hired an expert to oversee a hydraulic operation. The Dublin Hydraulics Company was incorporated in 1910 with Thompson as president and A.W.H. Smith as the secretary-treasurer and promoter of the project. Suttles, who owned ten claims inside the concession, optioned them to the company for $10,000 payable in two years. For some reason the ground was not profitable for the company and little more was heard from them.⁹⁾

Former Yukon Commissioner Frederick Congdon won the Yukon seat in parliament in 1908, but Thompson won it back in 1911, and was re-elected in 1917. He remained the Yukon’s Minister of Parliament until 1921 when he was succeeded by former Yukon Commissioner, George Black.¹⁰⁾

In 1917, Thompson was president of Yukon Copper Ltd., which the local newspaper described as the most extensive copper mining operation in the Whitehorse area. The company was producing 200 tons of ore per day in March 1917.¹¹⁾ In 1918. veterans returning from the First World War formed the Returned Soldier’s Club. Thompson owned a building on Queen Street and Second Avenue, and he donated the space for them to meet.¹²⁾ During the First World War Thompson served as a member of the Canadian Medical Corp.¹³⁾

In June 1923, Minister Dr. Thompson and Captain N. K. Wade returned from a trip to Teslin Lake where they made a preliminary survey of landing places for airplanes. They asked residents about the route from the lake to the Gravel River as a means of getting a Yukon winter route to the Fort Norman oil fields.¹⁴⁾

In September 1921, Dr. Alfred Thompson announced his retirement from political life and his intention to resume his medical career.¹⁵⁾ There were rumours at the time of an upcoming federal election.