New Project

I am very excited to report that I have been asked by the Yukon Order of Pioneers, founded by Jack McQuesten over 100 years ago, to recreate a large banner that they had used for years and that had burned when their meeting hall was destroyed in the 1960s. There are only two pictures of it, both in black and white, and a little blurry so it will be a good challenge to try to reveal what each element was and recreate it.  Member Ed Jones is hoping the banner will be ready for a big event next August. It is a velvety cloth with lots of design work on. Here is one of the two shots.

There was another famous march that happened just a few years ago by this group. On "Jack McQuesten Day" - August 11, in 2007, the Yukon Order of Pioneers marched along with two Mounties and a bagpiper to the spot where a large plaque was mounted at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River showing Jack McQuesten and his story.

The Pioneers, Ed Jones, two of his friends, myself, and the family at large all put in equal shares of $500 each to pay for the plaque. I and particularly the Jones picked up the balance of the tab for the $4,000 project. Here is Ed Jones standing at the plaque on Jack McQuesten Day -

It was a wonderful day with nearly every living Yukon historian speaking to the crowd and honoring perhaps the most famous McUisdean ever - Father of Alaska, Father of the Yukon, inspiration for Yukon Jack, Injun Papa to the natives, expert on the line between Canada and the U.S. according to the U.S. Labor Department, friend, inspiration and story-teller to author Jack London, inventor of the Sourdough Thermometer that saved many lives, first official recorder of the weather on the upper Yukon, collector of hundreds of specimens for the Smithsonian, founder of four Yukon towns, skipper of at least the first four steamboats on the Yukon, famous across America and inspiration for a solid gold statue at the Exposition Universelle of 1900, the World's Fair held in Paris France. The list goes on!

Ed and Star Jones, Walter McQuesten (Jack's grandson) and their Yukon friends made it possible for my book and for the incredibly important plaque, which will be viewed by 50,000 to 100,000 tourists every summer season, for time immemorial, and for this I am so honored to be able to give back with my skills to recreate the Yukon Order of Pioneers banner.