CBC Radio in the Yukon

Andrew Cowan earned country-wide acclaim during World War II, as one of the few Canadian reporters working the front lines in Europe. When he returned to Canada, he stayed on with the CBC, working his way up the ladder to a top management position. In the mid-'50s, he began the long bureaucratic process of bringing network radio to the north. It took a lot of arm twisting to convince the aloof brass in Ottawa and Toronto that the silent outposts in the North deserved the network radio service.
Cowan was firmly committed to public broadcasting and was determined to see that the North would be served by the CBC. On November 10th, 1958, Cowan's hard work paid off. CFWH became the first in a series of network-linked radio stations owned and operated by the CBC to broadcast across the North. CFWH, standing for Canadian Forces Whitehorse, went on the air in the mid-'40s as a military run, but volunteer staffed radio station. When the CBC took over, four Yukoners, Terry Delaney, Tom Horny, Earl Stephanson and Joe Craig became the CBC's first on-air employees in the North. Joe Craig had been the morning man on CFWH as a volunteer and retained that role with the CBC. Terry Delaney became the voice of sports in the Yukon, and went on to cover many memorable events such as Senator Robert Kennedy's famous climb of Mt. Kennedy in the St. Elias Mountains. He also reported first-hand to the world the Alaska earthquake of 1964.
When I became a summer relief announcer, the legendary Wee Willie Anderson was known throughout the Yukon for yelling 'Yahoo' at the top of his voice to open his popular daily western roundup show. Cal Waddington was producing timeless Yukon historical radio programs. Terry Delaney was calling local hockey games, and Ted North was sending news reports "outside" to the network.
The first location of CFWH, as a CBC station, was in an old air-force building across the Alaska Highway from the airport. In the early '60s, the CBC moved into a brand new building on Third Avenue, next to what was then the bus depot. As new as the building was, it was never meant to be a radio station. Sound proofing was non-existent and hallway conversations could be heard during local station breaks. The daily 6:30 departure of the bus, parked between the bus depot and the radio station, coincided with the broadcast of the local 6:30 newscast. I could always distinguish the bus drivers who liked the CBC from those who did not. Friendly drivers calmly let the engine idle. Unfriendly drivers revved the engine at maximum torque until the newscast was over. In April of 1966, the CBC moved to its present location on the corner of Third and Elliot. The building was state of the art for its time. It was sound proof.

The Alaska Earthquake - 1964

Good Friday, March 27th, 1964. It was a quiet afternoon across Alaska, but the silence would soon be broken. And there would be little good on this good Friday.
At 5:36 p.m. Alaska Time, the first rumble was first heard in towns and villages near the earthquake's epicenter in Prince William Sound. The land begang to shake. Not an unusual event in this earthquake prone region of the world. But it seemed the shaking would never end.
When it did, four or five minutes later, Alaska was centre stage of the largest earthquake in North American history.
The magnitude 8.6 earthquake was centered in Prince William Sound off the coast of south-central Alaska. It was 22 kilometers under the earth's surface and about 88 kilometers west of Valdez. The earthquake caused many avalanches, landslides, and, worst of all, a huge tsunami.
The effects of the tsunami were felt all around the Pacific rim. It was the highest at Shoup Bay on Valdez Inlet, at 67 meters. Even Port Alberni on Vancouver Island received a tsunami wave measuring 6.4 meters. The tsunami waves were also recorded as far away as Hawaii, Japan, Chile, and Antarctica.
In Anchorage, huge landslides pummelled the downtown business section. An upscale development known as Turnagain Heights is where the largest and most devastating landslide occurred. It destroyed about 75 homes and severely damaged water and gas mains, sewer and telephone lines, and disrupted electrical systems.
In the town of Old Valdez, the freighter SS Chena had just docked with the first fresh fruit and goods of the season. It was customary for the people of Valdez to be at the docks when the ships came in. There were many adults and children on the dock when the quake struck, triggering a huge slide that caused millions of cubic yards of earth to slip into the Valdez Bay. Thirty-two people, mostly children, died.
In the Aleut village of Chenega, 23 people died when a 90-foot tsunami washed over the local beach packed with people waiting for an evening movie to begin.
Most towns, especially the ports such as Seward and Kodiak, were heavily hit by a combination of seismic damage, tsunamis, and fire. A two-meter wave reached Prince Rupert, about three hours after the quake. It then headed for Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and travelled up a fjord to strike Port Alberni twice, damaging 375 homes and washing away 55 others. Luckily, no one was killed.
However, the Good Friday Alaska earthquake directly resulted in 131 deaths. Alaska alone recorded 115 fatalities, 106 of which were caused by the tsunami. The other 16 deaths occured in Oregon and California and were also caused by the tsunami.
For an earthquake of this magnitude, the death toll was remarkably small. But the drama wasn't over. For days, eleven aftershocks were recorded with magnitudes over a remarkable 6 on the Richter scale. Total damage from the earthquake and tsunami was between $400 and $500 million ... which translates into billions of dollars in today's currency.

The Vancouver Pantages Theatre

The tentacles of the Klondike gold rush reached across the world like some gigantic primaeval octopus leaving in their wake both success and failure for those involved. A Greek immigrant experienced both during his colourful life and one of his legacies is still in the news today.
It’s a building. But not just any building. It is Vancouver’s Pantages’ theatre, a historic edifice spawned by the money generated in the Klondike. Today that theatre on East Hastings street - a landmark of history in Vancouver - is about to meet the wrecker’s ball.
Alexander Pantages was an emigrant from Greece who at age 28 ended up in the Klondike in 1898. There, the small man standing just over 5 foot six and with no land or interest in mining, became involved in the theatre business.
In Dawson, borrowed money from the famous Klondike Kate to open a vaudeville theatre on Front Street called the Orpheum. They became partners and Kate became Pantages’ mistress. Later she discovered that he was married. Then he skipped town without paying her back. But for three years things were great for the Dawson theatre couple as Pantages learned the vaudeville business in entertainment starved Dawson. And he put those lessons to good use. Pantages moved to Seattle in 1902 and opened his first vaudeville theatre outside the Klondike,
By 1907 he had opened a third theatre in Seattle. Then in January 1908, the budding entrepreneur opened a state of the art Pantages Theatre on East Hastings.
Another Pantages theatre in Vancouver built in 1914 on Hastings was later called the Majestic and then the Odeon Theatre. The Pantages theatres in Vancouver headlined stars like Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Jack Dempsey and baseball star Babe Ruth who is shown in a photo on the Pantages stage with Vancouver mayor L.D. Taylor crouched behind him as catcher. This Pantages theatre was demolished in the 1960s.
In the 1920s, Alex Pantages was a name to be reckoned with in the motion picture industry By the late 20s, Pantages owned or operated more than 70 stunning theatre buildings throughout Canada and the US. But his empire began to crumble with the great depression. The first Pantages theatre in Vancouver is still standing on East Hastings, (as of April 2010) the oldest remaining Pantages theatre in North America. But not for long.

The oh so cool, Raven

The Yukon's official bird is not only found in the Yukon. It's found all across the circumpolar world and ranges as far south as the mountains of central America. Still, if you're going to choose a emblematic bird for the Yukon , it might as well be the smartest, funniest, coolest bird in the land.
Know anyone who doesn't have a raven story to tell? I don't. We had a German Shepherd in Whitehorse a long time ago. We tied him to the clothes line so he could range at will around the back yard without heading down the street or into the bush. How ravens would torment poor Rockey, who never came to realize that his chain would let him run only so far. But the ravens knew how far the chain would go, and would croak as they ate his stolen dog food just out of range. More than once he nearly choked to death as he came to a shuddering stop while the ravens, if they could show glee, did so.
Smart.

These birds are smart. And gregarious. They know humans are good providers of nutrients - garbage cans, grocery bags left unattended in pickups, dog mash left in the backyard. Ravens know how to find this stuff, and that's why they hang around. Ravens are the largest of all songbirds. They are members of the crow family and thus related to magpies, jays and nutcrackers. As with much bird life, not a lot is known about their communication systems. But some researchers say they have the most complex vocalizations of all birds.
While most birds breed in the spring, the Raven breeds in winter. The young are hatched in winter, often in communal roosts. Most bird watchers say they have never seen a baby Raven. That's because when they leave the nest, the three-week-old chicks look as big as, if not bigger than, the adult. A lot of feathers on a tiny body.
Ravens are likely monogamous. They take one partner for life. Or so bird biologists believe. But then, anything about a bird as smart as the Raven is open for debate. For example, do birds play? Like kids? When you watch Ravens in groups of ten or more soaring and diving with the wind currents over some Yukon sidehill, it's hard to imagine anything at work but play. Nor, as one lucky photographer found out when he took a series of startling pictures, can it be anything but play.
The series of photographs show a solitary Raven on a snow-covered sidehill. At the top, it curled into a ball and rolled twenty or more feet down the hill. This happened six times before the playful bird quit - perhaps dizzy from all that rolling down the hill. The photos are proof that this is not another urban raven legend.
So it seems the Yukon's official bird is a gifted creature with a complex lifestyle suitable for the large range of options available in the Yukon. Now, if we could only find one complaining about the weather. Nah, they like the weather.

Last Voyage of the SS Keno

Today, the SS Keno sits high and dry near Front Street in Dawson. She was built in Whitehorse in 1922 and was considered the little jewel in the crown of Yukon riverboats. The SS Keno was built to carry ore between Mayo and Stewart City at the mouth of the Stewart River. The Keno's draft was only three feet, allowing her to navigate the sometimes very shallow Stewart. She could carry 120 tonnes on board and another 250 tons by pushing a barge in front. The lead-silver-zinc concentrate was contained in bags, each weighing 125 pounds and each laid on the freight deck.
Above the freight deck, there was the passenger deck which could carry 32 people. Above this was the Texas deck, which housed the Captain and officers. Above that was the pilot house. The Texas deck was so named because it was really a "stateroom". The term stateroom came from the days of the great ocean-going liners which had "staterooms". These were expensive passenger quarters which were named after American states.
By 1937, ore production was growing faster than the boats could deliver it to Whitehorse. So the Keno was lengthened by 10 feet.
The Keno was taken out of service in 1951, when trucks began carrying ore on the newly built Whitehorse-Mayo road. She sat in the shipyards in Whitehorse until 1960, when the White Pass company donated her to the Canadian government. That year she made her final voyage to her resting place in Dawson City.
By 1960 a bridge had been built across the Yukon River at Carmacks. The Keno was too high to sail under the bridge. So the pilot house was taken off and the smoke stack was laid on the Texas deck. Even with these modifications, the Keno cleared the Carmacks bridge by just 18 inches. The Captain on that trip was Frank Blakely, a BC riverboat man, making his first trip on the Yukon River. Frank Slim was the pilot and Henry Breaden was the first mate. Terry Delaney and Ed Kerry of CBC Whitehorse were along to cover highlights of the journey for national radio broadcast.

Otter Falls, Yukon

There are strange things done in the Yukon. Take money for example. The 1954 five-dollar bill was the first to have a likeness of our new Queen, Elizabeth on the front. She had been crowned Queen in 1953 and, the following year, the Bank of Canada replaced the portrait of her late father King George with hers.
Well, it didn't take long for the conspiracy theorists to get in on the act. They saw the likeness of a devil’s head in her hair. Thus, the 1954 series of Canadian bank notes became known as the 'devil’s head series'. Of course, there was no devil in her hair. It was a mass case of seeing something that does not exist.
A story made the rounds that a French Canadian, who designed the portrait, slipped a devil’s head past the scrutineers because he opposed the monarchy. That was never true. Just to be on the safe side, the Bank of Canada had the plates (from which the notes were produced) darkened in 1956, so any chance of seeing a fictional devil’s head vanished.
Now you are right to ask, "what does this have to do with the Yukon?"
In a round-about way, plenty. You see, the 1954 five-dollar bill, long out of circulation, has, on the back, a picture of Otter Falls, Yukon, where I often fished for rainbow trout with my brother-in-law.
I have been trying to find out why Otter Falls is on the "devil's head" bill? Who took the photo? How was it chosen? When was it taken? Questions, questions.
A Yukon friend from my distant past says it was taken by Blondie Hougen, late brother of Rolf Hougen. He says he was there when Blondie took the photo. There can be no doubt that my friend was with Blondie that day and that Blondie took a photo. But did his photo end up on the five-dollar bill? It is possible, but I could not confirm that from officials at the Bank of Canada’s museum.
They tell me that in preparing for the 1954 issue, officials at the Bank of Canada reviewed literally thousands of images of Canada, searching for examples that would capture the diverse nature of the Canadian landscape. Various firms, including the National Library, Canadian Pacific and several news agencies, supplied the images. They say that they have no specific information about the source of the photograph used to engrave the image of Otter Falls.
So it remains a mystery - for now - how or why Otter Falls came to grace the 1954 five-dollar bill. It is, of course, no longer in circulation and, as a collector’s item, it is not worth very much. To a Yukoner, however, who fished the falls and marvelled at their grandeur when the water raged over the rocks before they built the Aishihik dam in the mid-seventies, the sight of the falls living forever as a famous image on an historic piece of Canadian currency is reason enough to hope that Blondie Hougen took the photo, because it captured, for Yukoners everywhere, the magic and the mystery of the land. You can see a video about Otter Falls at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Tkx37BI3o