Ross River, Yukon

Ross River is an unincorporated community in the Yukon, Canada. It lies at the juncture of the Ross River and the Pelly River, along the Canol Road, not far from the Campbell Highway. Primary access to the Campbell Highway is a nine-mile access road of superior alignment, not the six-mile Canol Road section which is no longer maintained. It is serviced by Ross River Airport, used mainly for charter and scheduled flights to and from Whitehorse and Watson Lake.

In 2001, the community had a population of 337.

It is the home of the Ross River Dena Council.

History

The confluence of the Ross and Pelly Rivers has long been used as a gathering place for First Nation peoples, particularly in the late summer. The first permanent settlement was established in 1901 when Tom Smith started a small fur trading post on the north bank of the Pelly and called the spot Smiths Landing. That winter approximately 15 First Nation families over wintered near the post, creating the beginnings of the permanent community of Ross River. By 1903 a second, rival, trading post was set up on the south bank of the Pelly opposite Smiths Landing. The settlement attracted an increasing number of people, mostly the Kaska but including many First Nation people from the Mackenzie River region who would travel over the divide to meet others, trade, and sometimes stay. By 1914 over 1,000 people were gathering at Ross River in the late summer. But a severe influenza epidemic in 1916 hit the community’s First Nation people hard, and increasing economic activity and new trading posts along the Mackenzie River reduced the numbers of people gathering and settling at Ross River.

World War II and the years immediately following brought massive changes to Ross River. The building of the Canol Road and pipeline between 1942 and 1944 brought a massive, but temporary, influx of outsiders to the area and the new road made the community much more accessible, although the road closed in 1946 and did not reopen until 1958. The late 1940s and early 1950s also saw a collapse of fur prices and the permanent closure of most of the region’s fur trading posts — including Pelly Banks, Sheldon Lake, Rose Point, Frances Lake and Macmillan River. By 1952 Ross River was designated as a band village and had the only remaining trading post in the region. The Canol Road shifted the commercial centre of the community to the south bank of the Pelly River at the new ferry crossing point and the federal government began pressuring the First Nation to move across the river from the Old Village. By the mid 1960s that pressure resulted in the complete abandonment of the Old Village and the community of Ross River assumed the shape it has today.

Mining exploration increased in the region around Ross River through the 1950s and an exploration and mining boom occurred in the 1960s and 1970s with the discovery and development of the Faro mine. Although Ross River Dena people did work in mining exploration — it was Ross River Dena citizens Arthur John, Jack Ladue, Robert Etzel and Joe Etzel who led Al Kulan to Vangorda Creek where he staked the first claims of what would become the Faro mine — the mining boom did little to benefit most of the First Nation.

Al Kulan helped Ross River residents contribute another colourful story to the Yukon's history in 1972, when he financed television service. The community was too small to get a satellite serviced transmitter for the CBC, and in fact did not even have radio because of bureaucratic delays on the equipment that was waiting for installation. Residents had to drive to Faro to listen to the Canada-Russia hockey series. Kulan hired a helicopter and he and the pilot from Whitehorse flew from mountaintop to mountaintop on a bitterly cold night trying to find the signal from Faro's five watt TV transmitter. After a signal was detected on Grew Creek Hill, Kulan paid for the equipment, and the community's men volunteered their work, bulldozing a road up the mountain. The transmitter caught the government's attention, and the residents defiantly refused to shut it down and requested a licence. In early 1975, radio was finally installed. Ross River's community effort led to other such projects that brought TV to every community; Teslin installed their own satellite dish (illegal until 1979), and the Yukon government attempted to negotiate a lower lease price with Telesat Canada which had a monopoly on satellite earth stations until 1979. Al Kulan was murdered by an allegedly aggrieved fellow partner of the discovery of what was to become the Anvil Mine at Faro, the largest lead/zinc mine in the world.

External links

* [http://www.yukoncommunities.yk.ca/communities/rossriver/ Community profile]