Ed. note: this is one of a series of riding profiles for the Nov. 7 election being published in random order.

Sandy Silver may have swept to victory in 2011, but for nearly two decades prior, the Klondike was blue, through and through.

The historic centre of mining in the Yukon, the Klondike, which includes Dawson City, is still home to many placer miners and families who trace their Yukon lineage back to the Gold Rush.

The riding sits on Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun land.

But the Klondike is known nationally for more than just mining.

Home to the Yukon School of Visual Arts (a.k.a. SOVA) and the Dawson City Music Festival, the riding is a thriving arts hub and destination North of 60 for creative and curious types.

Canadian literary greats Robert Service, Jack London, Dick North and Pierre Berton each called Dawson home at one point.

Their legacies live on at the Robert Service Cabin, which has been preserved by Parks Canada, the Jack London Museum and the Berton House, which today hosts a writer’s residency.

The many narratives of Klondike are present in its candidates: Jay Farr of the NDP is a citizen of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and has lived in the riding all his life.

Silver, the Liberal leader, moved up to the Yukon in his twenties for the job opportunities and fell in love with Dawson.

The Yukon Party’s Brad Whitelaw is something of a local tourism magnate, with a special appreciation for the Klondike’s the do-it-yourself spirit.

Jay Farr

Though he’s a first-time territorial candidate, Farr is not new to politics. He is a town councillor in Dawson and was formerly deputy chief of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation.

Farr was a Silver supporter in 2011 – “I was one of the big advocates of him running,” he says.

He changed horses this year because he felt Silver didn’t take a strong position on the Peel Watershed dispute and fracking.

“He’s on the fence on most top issues,” Farr says of the Liberal leader.

Farr’s grandmother and elders taught him to be mindful of the land, he says.

“One little quote that my grandmother and a lot of elders, especially in Yukon, say: ‘Respect the land, respect the water, respect animals and respect the people and they will respect you back.’”

Before local politics, Farr worked at Diamond Tooth Gerties, the casino in Dawson.

He readily admits that going up against Silver, an incumbent and a party leader, is no cake walk.

“The biggest challenge for me is the ground game. Sandy’s got his ground game since last time, and we’re just starting out,” he says.

“Hopefully people will see the difference between me and Sandy and Brad (Whitelaw) and make the right choice.”

If elected, Farr says, he would work to increase opportunities for Dawson’s young people.

“Every year I see families leave because nothing is happening for the kids,” he says.

“We got to get some funding for more programs to keep our kids and families here in Dawson, to stay and live and grow up.”

Dawson, says Farr, is that it’s like “one big happy family.”

Once the election is over, it doesn’t matter if you’re a New Democrat, Liberal or Yukon Party voter; everyone will go back to being friends – that’s the great thing about Dawson, he says.

Sandy Silver

Silver moved from Antigonish, N.S., to Whitehorse about 20 years ago.

For two years, he worked as a teacher at F.H. Collins Secondary School in Whitehorse, then transferred to Dawson, where he now lives.

“I just fell in love with the community; that community gave me everything that I have,” he says.

It’s one of the reasons he got into politics – to give back to the people who gave him so much.

As a teacher, Silver says, he became frustrated when bureaucrats would come down, ask for his input on how to improve the education system, then disregard what he said.

“You can sit there and complain about it or get involved,” he says.

So he did.

Silver ran for a seat in the legislature for the first time in 2011 and won 530 (49 per cent) of the 1,085 votes cast, beating out incumbent Steve Nordick of the Yukon Party.

He was one of just two Liberals elected to the legislative assembly in 2011, and was the only one from 2012 onward.

Darius Elias, the MLA for Vuntut Gwitchin, left the Liberal party to sit as an independent, then crossed the floor to join the Yukon Party.

This election, Silver is betting on a mighty comeback for himself and the Liberals.

“I look at my candidates and I’m just excited,” he says. “They’re so so diverse and talented, and they come from so many different walks of life, and they bring so much to this party.”

Community spirit is strong in Dawson, says Silver, as it has been since the Gold Rush.

“We might not all agree all the time, and have our own problems, but ultimately, it’s consensus that rules that town,” he says.

A kind of Goldilocks of Yukon politics, Silver says he doesn’t lean too far to the right or too far to the left; he’s comfortable in the middle.

His goal is to bridge the gap between the people and interests on either side.

“I’ve always all my life been a consensus builder,” he says.

“Whether it be in my professional career or just amongst my social scene, I’ve always wanted to bring people together.”

Brad Whitelaw

“I don’t feel like I’ve worked a day in my life,” Whitelaw says of his career in Dawson.

The owner of the Triple Jay Hotel, the Klondike Spirit paddlewheeler cruise and Jensen’s Outfitting, Whitelaw has seen success as a business owner in Dawson.

The television crew for the Discovery channel’s Gold Rush series stayed at his hotel this past summer, and they’ve already re-booked for November, he says.

This year was his busiest yet.

“The last few years have been so good to me, more than I could ever imagine,” says Whitelaw.

That’s why he decided to step up and run for the Yukon Party in the Klondike.

“I felt it’s so important to represent my community that’s supported me so much, especially these last few years,” he says.

“This was an opportunity for me to give back.”

Whitelaw moved up to the Yukon from the Greater Toronto Area in 1987. He was in his early twenties and rather aimless, he says.

Flipping through a magazine one day, Whitelaw saw an ad from what was then the Department of Renewable Resources (now Environment) in the Yukon and made the snap decision to pack up his truck and move across the country.

He drove straight to Dawson – and has lived there ever since.

“I had no plans or aspirations to be here 30 years later, but I don’t plan on leaving either,” he says.

In his thirties, he met his wife. The couple has two daughters who are now in their twenties.

“I’m so proud of them,” he says.

“They’re both out to school right now but they come back in the summers to help with the operations that I have here.”

Whitelaw says it’s important to protect the environment, but believes a carbon tax in the Yukon would do more harm than good.

“We must address this carbon issue, but (the Klondike constituents) agree as well that this tax will damage and strangle our already somewhat fragile economy here in the Klondike,” he says.

If gasoline is too expensive, people won’t travel to, and around, the Yukon, or start up mining operations here, he says.

There are ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions other than taxing Yukoners, he says, noting energy-efficient retrofits to homes and commercial buildings.

Whitelaw says he’s installing solar panels on his hotel next spring.

As for going up against a party leader, Whitelaw isn’t fazed.

“I’ll be very proud to represent (Silver) when I’m MLA,” he joked.

But in all seriousness, he says, “I’m not here to defeat him, I’m here to win on my own credits.”