A 1904 map of the Yukon Territory
11 June 2021
Yukon is an arctic territory of Canada, adjacent to Alaska. Geographically, it is the smallest of Canada’s three territories, and it has roughly the same population as Nunavut and slightly less than the Northwest Territories, making these the smallest of Canada’s provinces and territories in number of people.
The name Yukon was first applied to the Yukon River, and later extended to the region through which the river flows. The name is from Athabascan language family, specifically from the Gwich’in phrase Ųųg Han or Yuk Han. The meaning of the phrase is variously given as white water river or great river. The name was first rendered in English as Youcan, and later shortened to Yukon. Of course, other Indigenous groups have their own names for the river.
The first white man to stand on the banks of the river was John Bell, a fur trader and explorer for the Hudson Bay Company. Bell wrote an August 1845 letter to his superior at the Hudson Bay Company, George Simpson, who governed the region on behalf of the British government, in which he said:
I have great pleasure in informing you that I have at length after much trouble and difficulties succeeded in reaching the “Youcon,” or White Water River, so named by the natives from the pale colour of its water.
Another early English-language reference to the river is found in John Shillinglaw’s 1850 A Narrative of Arctic Discovery, in an account of John Rae’s 1849 expedition to find the whereabouts of John Franklin’s expedition, which had been lost the previous year:
Simultaneously with the expedition to proceed towards Cape Walker, one or two small parties were to be despatched to the westward of the Mackenzie, in the direction of Point Barrow, one of which was to cross over to the Youcon River, and descending that stream to the sea, carry on their explorations in that quarter, while the other going down the Mackenzie was to trace the coast thence towards the Youcon. And these parties were also to be instructed to offer rewards to the natives to prosecute the search in all directions.
Yukon was originally part of the Northwest Territories but was separated from that territory in 1898.
Traditionally the name of the territory has been fashioned as the Yukon, but the definite article was officially dropped from the territory’s name in 2003, although Yukoners and outsiders alike, still often refer to it as the Yukon.
Sources:
Coates, Ken S. and William R. Morrison. Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988, 2, 21. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
Rayburn, Alan. Oxford Dictionary of Canadian Place Names. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford UP Canada, 1999.
Robinson, Aimée Dawn. “The Controversial Three Letter Word.” Whats Up Yukon, 23 May 2013.
Shillinglaw, John J. A Narrative of Arctic Discovery. London: William Shoberl, 1850, 332. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Image credit: Marsh & Grant Co., 1904. Library of Congress. Public domain image.