YUKON TERRITORY

The name Yukon was first used by the Hudson's Bay Company trader John Bell in 1846. He called it "Yucon", derived from the Loucheaux Indian word "Yuchoo", meaning "the big or greatest river". The Yukon River is the fifth largest in North America.

Yukon was the first area in Canada to be settled by man. Historians speculate that men and animals once came to North America from Asia, across the Bering Strait land bridge. Dialects of Athapaskan, the only Indian language having definite traces of an Asiatic origin, are spoken by the Loucheaux, Han, Tutchone, Kaska-Dena and Tagish Indians. In the south-central part of the territory, the people and language are inland Tlingit, as are their neighbours and relatives of the coastal Alaskan panhandle.

In 1825, John Franklin became the first European to reach the Yukon when he followed the Arctic shoreline looking for the Northwest Passage. By 1846, the Hudson's Bay Company had established a trading post at Fort Selkirk in central Yukon. However, because of the remote location and severe climate, the population remained sparse until the discovery of gold.

Between 1897 and 1904, more than $100 million in gold was found in the area surrounding the Klondike River. After the initial discovery in 1896 at Rabbit Creek (later renamed Bonanza Creek), the Klondike became one of the most populous of all regions in north-western Canada. The city of Dawson was established to accommodate the huge influx of prospectors.

There were more than 40,000 people in Dawson at the peak of Klondike fever, and it became the new territory's capital city. Once the excitement - and the gold - had disappeared, so did most of the population. Today, Dawson's population is well under 1,000. Its new capital and largest city is Whitehorse and the territory still depends largely on mining. Its mountainous terrain and severe climate have discouraged settlement and the development of other important economic activities. Furthermore, most of the minerals are produced by mining operations that require a high degree of technology but relatively few workers.

Permafrost blankets the Arctic zones and extends into many southern parts of the Yukon. Any warmth, whether from household heating or spells of mild weather, is likely to melt the top layers of the permafrost. As a result, roadbeds and building foundations have to be insulated from the permafrost to prevent them from sinking.

The Yukon lies north of the 60th parallel of north latitude and partly within the Arctic Circle. Its area is 483,450 square kilometres, including 4,480 square kilometres of inland water. The area of the Yukon Territory accounts for slightly less than 5 percent of Canada's total area. More than half of the territory is forested. The northern regions are mostly barren tundra, a type of treeless plain. Farther south, milder temperatures permit some forest growth, especially in the river valleys and valley slopes below 900 or 1200 metres. Here are stands of conifers, in which white spruce predominates. Only the forests in the extreme south have commercial value. They are cut to meet local needs for fuel and rough lumber.

The Yukon abounds in wildlife, such as moose, caribou, mountain sheep, deer, and black and brown bears, including grizzly bears. Timber wolves are still common. Geese, swans, ducks, and numerous shorebirds, such as sandpipers, breed in the Yukon during the summer. The ptarmigan, found in all northern Canadian regions, remains throughout the year. In the Yukon's waters swim the plentiful arctic grayling, northern pike, rainbow and lake trout, whitefish, and salmon.