PBA Galleries

Sepia-tone silver photograph. 25.2x20.4 cm. (6x8¼"), on original board mount. Captioned in ink on lower image.

Photograph of five men boarding a caboose of the White Pass and Yukon railroad, as several bystanders observe their departure. The scene is explained in an accompanying carbon typescript, written by a one-time, albeit temporary, mayor of Whitehorse (White Horse in the typescript). After regaling us with tales of his adventures and entrepreneurial enterprises in the Alaska Gold Rush, he turns to the scene in the photograph: "...In July, 1902, there were five Chinamen arrived in White Horse for Dawson. Soon the business men get together and concluded that we would try and send them back out of the country. I was appointed Mayor by acclamation, and I got a big council and the big Bluff started. We informed them that no Chinamen allowed in the country..., that they would have to take the train next morning at 9 o'clock... We led them to the Caboose, they got in and that was the last Chinaman in the Yukon..."