The territorial election dominated Yukon headlines in 2016, and it turned some unfamiliar faces into household names.

Outside of territorial politics, Yukoners delivered a smorgasbord of scandals, controversies and achievements last year. Here is a by-no-means-exhaustive list of Yukoners who made news in 2016.

Jeanie Dendys

The first-time MLA shot to fame in the Yukon when she swiped the Mountainview seat from beneath then-premier Darrell Pasloski on Nov. 7.

But Dendys, now minister of Culture and Tourism in Premier Sandy Silver’s cabinet, was a mover and shaker in the Kwanlin Dun First Nation community long before that.

Last spring, the former director of justice at the First Nation took a leading role in a mental wellness gathering that brought indigenous groups from across Canada to Whitehorse.

She also organized the Choutla Residential School Closure and Healing Ceremony for former students of the school and their families in October.

Last May, she helped launch a $1.4-million community safety pilot program for the McIntyre neighbourhood.

Two months later, she announced her intentions to run for the Liberals and take on the premier on his home turf.

Darrell Carey

This placer miner reopened a debate about mining within municipal limits this year through his fight to mine claims under ski trails east of the Dome Road in Dawson City.

Carey applied to the Yukon Environment and Socio-Economic Assessment Board (YESAB) last summer for a 10-year permit to mine his 34 claims.

Carey’s plan met with spirited opposition from Dawson residents. They were concerned a mining operation would disrupt the area ski trails and wildlife, and from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, who said their final agreement gives them development rights to lands that overlap the claims.

Last month, upon YESAB’s recommendations, the Yukon government rejected Carey’s application, but said the miner could reapply after further consultations with the community and the First Nation.

Randy Clarkson, Carey’s spokesperson, said Carey already offered to relocate the ski trails. Carey paid $750,000 for some of those claims, Clarkson told the Star, and if he doesn’t get to mine them, he should be compensated.

This wasn’t Carey’s first attempt to mine close to Dawson.

In 2014, the Yukon government and Dawson council agreed to move the Dome Road so Carey could operate his Slinky mine underneath.

Raquel De Queiroz

De Queiroz has two full-time jobs – but she’s only paid for one of them.

The Whitehorse nurse practitioner is also the executive director of Yukon Cares, a community organization that sponsored Whitehorse’s first family of refugees from Syria.

Spurred to action by the infamous photograph of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, whose little body washed up on the shores of Turkey after his family’s attempted escape from Syria, De Queiroz began raising funds in 2015 to resettle Syrian refugees in the Yukon.

She has since worked diligently to bring the 11-member Arafat family to Canada and help them adjust to life in Whitehorse.

It’s meant finding the family a home, organizing language lessons, teaching the family how to ride the bus, getting them doctors appointments, and much more.

But it’s giving the children the chance to go to school again that’s meant the most.

“The kids just want to go to school,” De Queiroz told the Star last February. “It’s one of the main things they want to do.”

David Laxton

The former Speaker of the Yukon Legislative Assembly and Yukon Party MLA abruptly stepped down and exited the caucus last May after an allegation that he sexually harassed a woman at the legislature during office hours.

In a statement on Facebook, Laxton said he twice hugged and kissed on the mouth a “long-time acquaintance” when she visited him at his office last February. He called the sexual harassment claim “false.”

The Yukon Party banned Laxton from seeking a nomination in November’s election, and he didn’t seek to keep his Porter Creek seat.

Last July, the woman at the centre of the allegation said she and Laxton had come to a “mutually agreeable resolution” through the Yukon Human Rights Commission.

Laxton said the ordeal had been a “profound learning experience” for him and apologized for “any harm or distress that my conduct has caused her.”

Notably, the commission pointed out that there is no official sexual harassment policy for MLAs. The woman said she considered the matter closed.

In September, however, Laxton was charged with one count of sexual assault stemming from an alleged incident the previous February. That court case is expected to be heard later this year.

Sandy Silver

Any Yukon year-end list would be incomplete without the territory’s new premier.

The Liberal leader was catapulted from the lone Grit in the legislative assembly to the head of a majority Liberal government, with 11 of the 19 seats in the house.

It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Silver and Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Both were teachers, both are of a younger generation than their predecessors, and the two share a boyish charm.

“I’ve been accused by the other two parties of being a cheerleader of the federal government or even, ‘Trudeau’s little sister,’ I believe I was called,” joked Silver at a pre-election luncheon hosted by the Yukon First Nations Chamber of Commerce last September.

But after 14 years of the Yukon Party rule, there is a lot of pressure on Silver to be a force for change in the territory.

Silver kicked of his mandate by making the controversial carbon tax official. Though it’s still unclear exactly what the rate will be, and how revenues will be recycled, it’s certain to ruffle a few feathers once prices spike at the pumps.

Silver also said repeatedly on the campaign trail that building relationships with First Nations governments would be his top priority. How will he make this goal a reality?