Jared Cecil “JC” Wilkinson (1886 – 1980)
Jared Wilkinson was born in Richfield, Utah [or in the Peace River country according to writer Delores Smith]. JC met his future wife Lura Thompson in Washington state where Jared was working with horse teams. They were married in Redmond in 1909. In 1914, they moved to Peace River Crossing where their son William Jared was born, and then moved back to Washington where their daughter Ethel Lougene was born. Lura’s brother, Bill Thompson, had come to the Yukon during the gold rush. He worked for a short time as a pilot at Miles Canyon and then he moved to Fort Selkirk to prospect and mine on the Selwyn River. Bill Thompson invited the Wilkinsons to join him, and they arrived in Fort Selkirk in 1917. JC trapped in the winter and did odd jobs during the summer. Byron Edwin “Eddie” was born at Fort Selkirk in 1919. In 1927, the family moved to Plateau Mountain near Russell Creek where son Jared trapped. In 1940, the family bought the Pelly Farm on the Pelly River and pursued a life of trapping, hunting, farming, and guiding.1)
JC Wilkinson bought the Pelly River farm from the Faircloughs. He brought in more machinery and raised pigs as well as cows. The whole family were trappers; Jared Jr., Eddie, Ethel, and even their mother who only quit when she started to get an old age pension. JC had to get a special ruling from Ottawa to buy 337 acres the land he was farming as fields in 1954. The land had been used for grazing horses and cattle for nearly eighty years. It was recorded as part of the farm although each of the previous owners thought they had three homesteads of 160 acres each plus a 400-acre land grant. Mrs. Bradley was told they were all written in Transfer of Mining Claim forms and were destroyed or lost when the capitol moved to Whitehorse. Hugh Bradley visited the farm to check their experimental plots and when JC Wilkinson decided to sell out, he approached Bradley who bought it with his brother and two friends.2)
The Wilkinsons sold the farm in 1954 and moved to Pelly Crossing. In 1958, JC and Lura left the Yukon to live in Edgewood, British Columbia. They returned in 1967 and settled with their sons near Pelly Crossing. Lura died in 1970. In 1976, Jared Jr. and Edwin moved to Lansing near the confluence of the Stewart and MacMillan rivers. Edwin was killed by a bear at Lansing in 1977, Jared Jr. died in a car accident in Whitehorse.3)