Presbyterian missionary and photographer John Sinclair first arrived in Skagway on May 20, 1898. As the "sourdoughs' sky-pilot", Reverend J.A. Sinclair built long-standing St. Andrews Church and preached the funeral sermons for the outlaw mayor Soapy Smith and Frank Reid, the man who led a vigilante posse of citizens to rise against Smith. In the spring of 1901, Reverend Sinclair was appointed Principal of the Indian Industrial School at Regina. He had been influenced by his 1899 visit to Metlakahtla, Alaska where he was impressed by the paternalistic methods and philosophy of William Duncan. James Sinclair gathered his father's photos and Yukon journals for a biographical tribute and social history.

BOOKS:

Mission: Klondike: From Lawless Skagway to Bennett and Dawson (Mitchell Press, 1978)

[BCBW 2004]