Yukon Basin Gold Dredging Company, Ltd. (Signed by William Ogilvie)

Product Details

Historical Context

The Yukon-Basin Gold Dredging Company acquired extensive leases along the Stewart River, in the Yukon district, and had plans for dredging operations on a "gigantic scale." As a matter of fact, the company's promotional literature and newspaper advertisement claimed the company was "the greatest gold dredging enterprise in the world."

The average width of the river was 200 yards, and the total area of the submerged river bed included within the leaseholds was said to be about 10,000 acres. The company built a power plant at Fraser Falls develop water power sufficient to operate dredges for 30 miles along the placer grounds.

The gold bearing gravels of the Stewart had long been celebrated, but it appears this company never lived up to their self hype as production history is limited.

William Ogilvie

William Ogilvie's Signature

William Ogilvie (April 7, 1846 – November 13, 1912) was a Canadian Dominion land surveyor, explorer and Commissioner of the Yukon Territory.

He was born on a farm in Gloucester Township, Canada West in an area now known as Glen Ogilvie to James Ogilvie of Belfast Ireland and Margaret Holliday Ogilvie of Peebles, Scotland. Ogilvie articled as a surveyor with Robert Sparks, qualifying to practice as a Provincial Land Surveyor in 1869. He married Sparks' daughter Mary, a school teacher, in 1872. He worked locally as a land surveyor, qualified as a Dominion Land Surveyor in 1872 and was first hired by the Dominion government in 1875.

He was responsible for numerous surveys from the 1870s to the 1890s, mainly in the Prairie Provinces. From 1887 to 1889, Ogilvie was involved in George Mercer Dawson's exploration and survey expedition in what later became the Yukon Territory. He surveyed the Chilkoot Pass, the Yukon and Porcupine rivers. Ogilvie established the location of the boundary between the Yukon and Alaska on the 141st meridian west.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, he surveyed the townsite of Dawson City and was responsible for settling many disputes between miners. Ogilvie became the Yukon's second Commissioner in 1898 at the height of the gold rush, and resigned because of ill-health in 1901.

He was the author of Early Days on the Yukon (1913), which is still available in facsimile reprints. The Ogilvie Mountains, Ogilvie River and Ogilvie Aerodrome in the Northern Yukon Territory along with Ogilvie Valley in the Southern Yukon Territory are named after him.

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