By: Gordon-Cooper, Harry
ISBN: 0-88839-232-X
Binding: Trade Paper
Size: 8.5" X 5.5"
Pages: 144
Photos: 47
Illustrations: 9
Publication Date: 1990

In a land such as the Yukon, with its colorful past matched by its colorful characters, tales abound of the perils and adventures experienced by those hardy sourdoughs who first pioneered the country. Many are the tales that have been told in the still of the un-equalled splendor of a Yukon evenings while gathered around the campfire with close companions. 

A group of men were sitting in the smoking compartment of a cross-Canada train, when the compartment was entered by another man who looked around and asked if there was anybody in the group from the Yukon. I am, said one of the men.
Good, said the newcomer, lend me your bottle opener, will you please.
It may be the harshness, at times, or the length of the winters, or any number of other indeterminate factors that make Yukoners different - a difference greatly appreciated by other Yukoners. And so it is with those of us who spend our lives in the high northwest. All these yarns have to do with men of the north. The stories are true. It is to be hoped that our stories will prove to be interesting and entertaining. The pity of it is that they cannot be listened to over steaming hot rums on a cold winter nights, rather than read from a book.

Harry Gordon-Cooper was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1912. He displayed an early taste for adventure by going to sea at seventeen but left after two years to improve his education. The author moved to Hong Kong to find suitable employment and, although these were the Depression years, he managed to accumulate four years of experience as a physical education and gymnastic instructor, plus training as a dancer. He had decided this was to be his profession; however, the war came, and he joined the RCAF instead. He served as a pilot attached to the RAF and finished the war as a Flight Lieutenant with a Mention in Dispatches. Harry arrived in the Yukon in 1947. As a bush pilot, hydrometric surveyor, camp cook, horse wrangler, prospector and, strate's Court, he traveled his adopted territory extensively and knew most of the old-timers who lived on the lakes and rivers before roads replaced waterways as traffic routes. He has been keeping notes for decades on their stories which are part of the fabric of Yukon history - from a period largely lost or just plain ignored, between the Gold Rush and the current boom which began in the 1950's. Most of the stories in this book come from his early days as a bush pilot. I wanted to write down and perpetuate their stories before they were lost, explains Harry Gordon-Cooper - Yukoner.