Vogee’s shop in Dawson, Yukon, early 1900s. Courtesy Yukon Archives via Yukon News
Toronto. For some years Scott Rickard was our programme director (and a speaker in the fall of 2015). Scott and his wife had recently moved south after operating a photo studio up in Dawson. Scott joined the re-enactment of a mail run along the Chilkoot trail used by those in search of fame and gold to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
More recently, George Dunbar sent me a note the other day. George had discovered the Yukon News site. In particular he found and shared this article titled, “History Hunter: Anton Vogee is a treasure from the vaults of the Yukon Archives“, written by Michael Gates and dated Jan 9, 2022.
Michael asked David Schlosser, Yukon’s Territorial Archivist, for his suggestion of a photographer and his photographs from the massive 300,000 to 400,000 images archive.
The result was this story of Anton Vogee and his photographs taken in the early 1900s. Michael says in part, “Anton Vogee was born in Norway in 1867 and emigrated to the United States in 1888. At first, he painted studio landscapes. He later became a travelling sign painter for a tobacco firm. Vogee was also a photographer and made good use of his camera to document his hand-painted signs as proof for payment for his work.
“Vogee had opened his first sign shop in Portland, Oregon, when news of the Klondike Gold Rush reached Portland in 1897. He joined the rush and quickly opened a shop in Dyea, at the head of the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska. The following year he moved to Skagway. In 1899, he moved his business to Atlin, B.C., with a branch office in Pine City, located in the nearby goldfields.
“By 1900, he had moved to Dawson City, where he opened a store on Princess Street, behind what would later become the Oddfellows Hall.
Read Michael’s story in full and see how photography complements history and the valuable work done today by local archivists – and all photograph collectors who take the time to research their collections.
