11 - Did You Know?

In fresh pursuit of Yukon trivia.

Earlier this year, an American publisher hired me to update its online destination guide for the Yukon. I was told to avoid the standard tourism office hype, an instruction that presented some enticing possibilities when I began to revise the section called “Potpourri.”

“Potpourri items,” my editor wrote, “are interesting, obscure or offbeat tidbits about the place, things the visitor may not come across elsewhere…. Please add and/or delete as you see fit—they can be statistics, literature, celebrity sightings, eccentric bits of trivia… have fun with it!”

I did have a little fun, though not as much as I might have liked. With a modest budget and unfamiliar client, I was inclined to leave well enough alone. Fortunately, I learned long ago that material omitted from one piece of writing can often be resurrected in another.

Here, then, is my big chance.

On my shortlist of favourites from the Yukon trivia department, I’d be tempted to begin with the observation that the Yukon is not part of Alaska—a point that seems lost on some of our American visitors. But that’s sarcasm, not trivia, so I won’t.

Instead, I’ll note that the old Taku Hotel was forever immortalized as the “Attack You” after a cook in its restaurant fatally stabbed a diner who lodged one complaint too many about the quality of his eggs. As far as I know, it’s the only egg-related homicide we’ve had in the last 30 years.

Whether or not the three-story wooden Mountie that stands over the entrance to another Whitehorse hotel explains this establishment’s relatively peaceful past, I can’t say. But I’m confident that our lumbering symbol of northern law enforcement is the tallest in Canada—and maybe the world.

Sticking with the theme of large wooden structures, the S.S. Klondike is hard to miss. Yet many visitors may not realize that when the 210-foot, 1,300-ton paddle wheeler was skidded through the streets of downtown Whitehorse to its present location in the 1960s, the job required eight tons of Palmolive Princess Snowflakes soap to “grease” the way.

For no particular reason, I’ll add that anyone who wants a closer inspection of either the Mountie’s noggin or the S.S. Klondike’s pilothouse won’t be riding an escalator to conduct it. The Yukon doesn’t have any. However, you can ride at speeds almost as slow as a moving staircase if you board the Jazz-Age trolley that rattles along Whitehorse’s “historic” waterfront. Less obvious to some travelers: the fact that no streetcars, including this one, played a role in the area’s fascinating history. The truth is, our beloved trolley spent most of its working life in the transit system of Lisbon, Portugal.

As you might expect, there’s also some colourful trivia about Yukoners. For example, the Yukon counts among its residents one Elvis Presley—better known as former Yukon Liberal leadership candidate “Tagish Elvis”—who bears a striking, if not coincidental, resemblance to… Elvis Presley. Had the Yukon government not withdrawn an apparent job offer (for which it was later sued), the territory might also be home to a bureaucrat with the legal name Sa Tan. And if the life story of former deputy Prime Minister and longtime Yukon Member of Parliament Erik Nielsen had ever been filmed for the silver screen, his brother Leslie—of Airplane and Naked Gun movie fame—might have been the natural choice to play the lead.

I’ll now conclude my slapdash presentation of obscure Yukon facts by dropping the name of another celebrity. As trivialities go, I think you’ll agree that The Force is strong with this one. Although details are sketchy, it’s a confirmed fact that the young Obi-Wan Kenobi (aka Scottish actor Ewan McGregor) was the honoured guest at an impromptu house party when he passed through Whitehorse in 2004. Sadly, I wasn’t invited.

For what it’s worth, you heard it here first.

First published in the September/October 2008 issue of above&beyond magazine. Photo by Ian Stewart.