Northern Brothers: The History of the Yukon Order of Pioneers

Based on archival records, photographs, interviews and lodge minutes, this sweeping account of the Yukon Order of Pioneers illuminates the history of an entire region by preserving a unique organization’s traditions and enduring legacy of communal generosity and support.

Nowhere is community more crucial than in the frozen lands of the North, where the austere climate makes isolation perilous. One fascinating outcome of this fact is the Yukon Order of Pioneers, the territory’s oldest fraternal order, with ten chapters, almost four thousand members and one hundred and thirty years of history.

Commissioned by the Order’s Lodge Number Two, Whitehorse-based historians Michael Gates and Kathy Jones-Gates work from archival records, photographs, interviews and lodge minutes to document the organization’s legacy across Yukon and Alaska as it passed through era-defining events.

Northern Brothers takes in the full scope of the Order’s presence north of the sixtieth parallel, beginning with its 1894 formation in a two-storey, log-walled “opera house” at the mouth of the Fortymile River, just ahead of the Klondike gold rush. From there, the story follows the Order’s rapid expansion in the turbulent years of World War I, and in ensuing decades when its members spread across the continent, from San Francisco to Toronto.

Culminating in a 2024 anniversary banquet in Whitehorse, this generation-spanning portrait of collective tenacity and support not only preserves the traditions, activities and cultural significance of the Pioneers for future generations, but also, in its detailed appendices, offers an invaluable resource to genealogical researchers. As it casts new light on the region’s history, Northern Brothers traces the life of a community institution sustained by a spirit of co-operating in order to survive, and reflecting the simplest of mottos: “Do as you would be done by.”