Yukon who is who

George Stuart Tuxford (1870 - 1942)

George Tuxford was born at Penmorfa, Carnavonshire, New Wales to Lincolnshire parents and grew up in the English countryside.¹⁾ He came to Canada in 1886 and homesteaded north of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.²⁾

George and his brother, W. A. Tuxford, and James Thomson, who became a brother-in-law, bought seventy steers during the 1897 winter thinking there was big money to made in the Klondike. They choose cattle that were about four years old. They left Moose Jaw on 24 May 1898 with the cattle, three saddle horses, a dog, and a few oxen to carry two fifty-pound packs. George Tuxford estimated there were 2,000 head of cattle being driven north on the Dalton Trail around the same time and they all paid Dalton’s toll.³⁾ The Tuxford Thompson party built two big rafts at the Yukon River and slaughtered the cattle. All was ready by 3 October. They turned their two remaining ponies loose and started downriver with twenty tons of beef. The trip took five months and they reached Dawson on 24 October. The local price had dropped and one raft load of beef, 9,994 pounds, sold for forty cents a pound, less than half of what Billy Henry received earlier in the month. They refused to sell their dog to miners who were willing to pay up to $500.⁴⁾ Tuxford and Thompson headed back to Moose Jaw the following summer and Thompson said home felt like a place he never wanted to leave again.⁵⁾

George Tuxford was appointed the first Commanding Officer of the Independent D Squadron, a sub-unit of the first militia unit to be raised in Saskatchewan. He went on to became the first Commanding Officer of the 27th Light Horse in Moose Jaw. He enlisted to serve in the First World War and command the 5th (Western Calvary) Battalion in the Second Battle of Ypres ad the Battle of Festubert. He was promoted to brigadier general in April 1916 and commanded the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade in the battles of Mount Sorrel, the Somme, Courcelette, Vimy Ridge, Hill 70, Amiens, Arras, and Cambrai. His brigade participated in the march to the Rhine and served as the occupation force until all Canadian troops returned home.⁶⁾