Keeping alive the spirit of the pioneers who first came to Yukon and settled is important to the members of Whitehorse Branch of The Royal Canadian Legion. That’s one of the reasons the branch has become involved in restoring the long neglected Pioneer Cemetery.

“To tell the truth, people were using it as a dog run,” said Red Grossinger, a former president of the branch and one of the more active volunteers.

The Pioneer Cemetery, on 6th Avenue in downtown Whitehorse, dates back to 1900 but was closed in 1965. A dispute over jurisdiction between the territory and municipality left the cemetery neglected for years. When the city finally took it over in the 1970s many of the wooden crosses in the cemetery were discarded in an attempt to clean up the field where about 800 of the first residents are buried.

Records had been poorly kept and then the site was disturbed by a landslide. “Everything shifted under the headstones. We don’t know who is buried where now,” said Grossinger.

The branch is working with the Yukon Order of the Pioneers, a fraternal organization which originally brought order to the prospectors in the absence of a police force. The intention is not to dig up the graves and identify the bodies, but to turn the area into a nice park. “It has to be respectful of the pioneers who first came here,” said Grossinger.

It is one of many projects taken on by the branch. It is the only Legion branch in the city of 27,000. “We are the only branch in Yukon big enough to look after the things that normally involve the Legion,” said former president David Laxton, who is also Speaker of the Yukon Legislature.

“There are about 250 veterans in the Yukon, including the RCMP. Only a few are Second World War veterans,” said Laxton.

Yukon provided an outstanding number of recruits for its population during the First World War. Laxton said it stands to reason, the territory was full of itinerate prospectors and other workers. The gold rush was over and the economy wasn’t doing well in 1914. “A lot of the First World War veterans were from Britain and Europe and the patriotism was very strong in Yukon,” said Laxton.

Commissioner George Black, the Ottawa-appointed manager of the territory, raised a contingent of Yukon volunteers and served with them at the front from 1917 to 1918. All the while he retained the position of commissioner.

More famously, mining tycoon Joe Boyle of Dawson City used his own money to raise a contingent of 35 men and equipped them with machine guns.

Whitehorse, which gets its name from its formidable rapids on the Yukon River said to look like the manes of white horses, also saw a surge of activity in the Second World War when the United States Army arrived to build the Alaska Highway. Thousands of troops poured into the territory to build a secure route for transporting troops and goods between Alaska to the United States mainland.

The city became the capital of Yukon in 1953. Dawson City, 530 kilometres to the north, was the original capital but it had been in slow decline ever since the gold rush ended. Whitehorse, meanwhile, had flourished during the war and was still a transportation hub for the territory.

Whitehorse Branch dates back to at least 1935. There is a charter hanging on the wall which is dated 1957 but that was issued to the existing branch when it became affiliated with Pacific Command, now known as British Columbia/Yukon Command.

Red Grossinger remembers the branch having a small log building in the 1960s. The branch moved a number times before moving into the present location on Steele Avenue.

“This used to be an old house. We originally bought it as an investment but then we decided to move in,” said Laxton. “We really expanded it and pushed it out toward the street.”

Now the branch lounge is the upstairs portion where it displays its memorabilia, including plaques from HMCS Whitehorse and HMCS Yukon. The lower level has a boardroom and offices which bring in some rent. At back is a patio where in summer it is not unusual for President Darcy Grossinger, Red Grossinger’s son, to be barbecuing steaks for the branch’s popular Friday night supper.

“We have a membership of about 400. Although a lot of our members live in a warmer climate,” said Darcy Grossinger.

The branch finds itself in the centre of community activities. On Canada Day, it organizes a parade and runs a beer garden. “Canada Day is very big. About 5,000 people participate. The parade runs two and half kilometres and there is a crowd all the way,” said Darcy Grossinger.

Another big event is the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous in February. “It’s basically a celebration to get over the cabin fever in winter,” said Darcy.

The winter carnival celebrates the legacy of the long-time residents of Yukon, often called sourdoughs, with a flour-packing competition, axe-tossing, the chainsaw chuck, dogsled races and cancan dancers. Among the attractions are the Whitehorse Legion’s Musical Ride where members wrap papier mâché horses around themselves and do a light-hearted parody of the RCMP Musical Ride and the Whitehorse Legion’s Whistling Pigmies where men with substantial bellies draw faces on their stomachs and try to make them “lip-sync” to music.

Another project on the horizon is the Vimy Heritage Housing Society. Although the project is still in the planning stage with other not-for-profit groups, a committee has been formed that hopes to see about 85 low-rental units for seniors. “We basically borrowed the idea from [British Columbia’s] New Chelsea Society. There was no sense in reinventing the wheel,” said Red Grossinger.

In 2005, the branch undertook its own campaign to bolster the morale of Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan. “A lot of people were coming in and asking about the We Support Our Troops ribbons; we wanted to do our own thing,” said Darcy.

The branch suggested making gift packages to send to troops serving in Afghanistan. Darcy, a former member of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, served with the first contingent of Canadian Armed Forces in Kabul. “I’ve served overseas at Christmastime and I know how well Operation Santa Claus is received,” he said.

However, there was a problem. “You can’t just send a package off to the troops the way you can send a letter. We had to have a name,” said Darcy. “But due to operational security, you can’t get a name.” So the branch did its own searching to find anyone currently serving overseas who was from Yukon or had a Yukon connection.

Red Grossinger had to make a tough decision when he was president. “I got a call from the military saying they couldn’t deliver one parcel because the recipient had just been killed. It was one of Darcy’s closest friends.”

Sergeant John Faught, 44, also of the PPCLI was killed by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar on Jan. 16, 2010. “They wanted to know what they should do with the package,” said Red. “I said, ‘Just give it to any soldier.’”

Supporting the troops, past and present, continues to keep the branch busy throughout the long
Yukon winter.