The pages of The Star (with its name in various forms including The White Horse Star and The Weekly Star) for its first century of publishing told the story of a community growing from a village to a city.

From a stop on the way to Dawson City, the economic and governmental centre of the territory, Whitehorse became the capital city. In the last 24 years, though, The Whitehorse Star has reported the story of a city redefining itself in significant ways, as well as the story of an evolving territory and major changes brought by two worldwide events.

The first significant story of the period was a worldwide story known as Y2K. Y2K was the belief that computers of the day would be unable to deal with having a date with three zeroes, and that chaos could result when crucial systems failed as a result.

The Canadian government “spent $2.5 billion on year 2000 testing and remediation, and employed upwards of 11,000 people to do the work” and vast sums were spent on preparing for the coming chaos, and on new computers. When 20000101 (January 1, 2000) arrived, there were few problems.

This period also started off with a bang of the celestial kind, when a meteorite lit up the skies on January 18, 2000. It exploded into thousands of pieces which landed on frozen Tagish Lake, so scientists from around the world were able to study it. Calling it the most significant event of its kind in a century, they determined that it had weighed approximately 200 tonnes and was 4.6 billion years old.

Approximately 90 Yukoners travelled to Quebec City for the first Canada Winter Games in 1967. Whitehorse had first officially expressed interest in hosting the 2007 Canada Winter Games in February 1995, but it wasn’t until January 2000 that Council announced that a bid was being prepared. Construction of a pool and multiplex had been planned before that, and the project was expanded to meet Games requirements.

When it was all over, the Canada Winter Games in late February and early March 2007, were near-unanimously seen as a huge success for Whitehorse and for the Yukon. A total of 7,600 people visited the territory, including 3,600 visiting athletes and coaches, and then spent about $8.7 million during the two weeks, with $2.53 million of that going to accommodations. The Canada Games Centre is a very much valued asset to the city today, and the athletes’ housing that was built provides homes for many residents.

On April 17, 2000, Yukoners elected their first Liberal government, with party leader Pat Duncan and nine of her running mates winning seats. Both NDP leader Piers McDonald and Yukon Party leader John Ostashek lost their seats. This was the party’s first win since political parties were recognized for territorial elections in 1977. In that period, the Yukon Party and the Yukon New Democratic Party had each won three elections. In the November 2000 federal election, Liberal Larry Bagnell won by less than one per cent, but it was the first Liberal win in 43 years.

Two new governments were added to the Whitehorse negotiations table after the Whitehorse-area First Nations signed their Final and Self-Governing Agreements, the Ta’an Kwach’an Council in 2002 and Kwanlin Dün First Nation in 2005.

The four co-ordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaida on the morning of September 11, 2001, shocked the world and changed the world, including the Yukon. During the worldwide closure of air space and grounding of all aircraft, two Korean Air Boeing 747s, one a cargo aircraft and the other carrying passengers, were thought to be hijacked en route to Anchorage, Alaska. The United States refused permission for them to land, and with fighter jet escorts, they were diverted to Whitehorse.

For about an hour and a half, all we knew was that two 747s, possibly hijacked and possibly part of the New York attacks, were headed for Whitehorse. It caused panic but a few hours after they had safely landed it was found to be an error in communication. The airline industry was decimated as a result of the attacks. U.S. airlines lost $8 billion in 2001, and weren’t profitable again for five years. Aircraft prices plummeted, and Air North was able to acquire two Boeing 737s, with which they started scheduled service to Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton in June 2002.

In June 2002, the new Yukon Act got royal assent. Among the most visible changes, the name “Yukon Territory” was changed to “Yukon” and the Council of the Yukon Territory became the Legislative Assembly.

Housing has been an ongoing problem for many years, with rapidly-escalating costs and relatively few homes for sale or rent. In 2001 the population of Whitehorse was 19,058 (a slight drop from 1996) and in September 2023 it was 32,197.

In 1994, the City started looking at developing residential properties, probably country residential, on what was called the Porter Creek lower bench, but for several years faced strong opposition from Porter Creek residents. In 2006, a presentation was made to council by the city planning manager showing a new community on the bench that could have a population of 10,000. The name “Whistle Bend” was used. There were also smaller housing developments to help alleviate the shortage, including Stan McCowan Place in 2007 after the Stan McCowan Arena was demolished, and Ingram subdivision in August 2008.

The biggest environmental story of the period was the multi-year fight to save the Peel River watershed. The Star first brought the significance of the region to readers’ attention in July 1991 following approval by the federal government of a claim by the Tetlit Gwitch’in of 600 square miles of Peel watershed straddling the Yukon/NWT border. Interest grew, and in October 2003 the Yukon Government began looking for people to serve on a Peel Watershed Planning Commission, which was mandated by Chapter 11 of the Umbrella Final Agreement, the blueprint for settling aboriginal land claims in the territory.

The board was created 14 months later, and in February 2009, two different plans for the Peel were released for public consultations. Within a week, a third option was added.

In December 2010, the Yukon Government announced that it could not accept the commission’s final pre-conservation report, for a variety of reasons. In February 2011, the Yukon government and four affected First Nations asked the commission to try again. Controversy continued, and in December 2014, Justice Ron Veale of the Yukon Supreme Court released a 92-page decision which criticized the government’s conduct during the land use planning exercise, and quashed the land use plan adopted by the government.

In December 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a similar judgement. On August 22, 2019, the Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan was finally signed in a ceremony at Mayo. The plan covers 67,431 square kilometres, of which 83 per cent is protected from development with no provision for access by road or rail.

World mineral prices have always been a challenge for most hard rock mines in the Yukon, but gold prices have made operating easier for both hard rock and placer mines. On January 2, 2020, the price of an ounce of gold was $719.70 per ounce and today (May 13, 2024) it is $3,223.54. Major hard rock mines that operated during at least part of this period include Brewery Creek (operated from 1997 until 2001), Eagle Gold (started operating in 2019), Keno Hill (started operating in December 2010), Minto (operated from 2007 until 2023), and Wolverine (closed in 2015).

The controversial subject of fracking (the use of hydraulic fracturing in the search for oil and gas) appeared in February 2012 when the Yukon government suggested opening up large areas of land in the Whitehorse Trough, which extends from Carcross to Carmacks, to oil and gas development.

The Select Committee Regarding the Risks and Benefits of Hydraulic Fracturing was created, and their final report released in January 2015, while not recommending a ban on fracking, did recommend conditions that should be met before allowing it. The Yukon Conservation Society said that those conditions create a de facto moratorium.

Some significant changes were made during this period to regulations directly involving people’s lives. In July 2004, in a Yukon Supreme Court decision by Justice Peter McIntyre, the Yukon became the fourth Canadian jurisdiction to make same-sex marriage legal.

Stephen Dunbar and Rob Edge had challenged the current law after being refused a marriage licence, and a few days after Justice McIntyre’s ruling, became the territory’s first legal same- sex married couple.

In August 2003, after months of public debate, Whitehorse city council unanimously passed a contentious smoking bylaw. In April 2008 the territory followed with a ban on smoking in all public places and in vehicles carrying people under the age of 18. In April 2018, the passing of the Cannabis Control and Regulation Act opened the door to legal sale of cannabis and in October, over 1,000 people showed up at the government cannabis store on its first day of operation. Once independent cannabis stores opened, the government closed theirs.

Yukoners continue to be honoured in many ways, including being inducted into the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour. Since 2000, eleven people from four Yukon communities have been added, bringing the total of Yukoners in the Order to 37.

Until 2018, the Yukon was the only Canadian jurisdiction that didn’t have an Order to honour the contributions of exceptional citizens, but in March 2018, the Order of Yukon Act was the first bill assented to by the new Commissioner, Angelique Bernard, and in November she named the first recipients. There were 10 inductees in each of the first two years, then by legislation there will only be three each year.

In December 2008, Premier Dennis Fentie officially announced the renaming of Whitehorse International Airport in memory of “one of Yukon’s most distinguished sons.” It is now the Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport. Erik Nielsen was the Yukon’s Member of Parliament for almost 30 years, from December 1957 until January 1987. He died in September 2008.

As of January 2010, tap water in Whitehorse is no longer coming from the surface of Schwatka Lake. The city’s water supply now comes entirely from six underground wells in the Riverdale area.

In March 2011, a decision by Whitehorse council to look for a new logo and tagline and to hire eSolutions, an Ontario company, to come up with them, was not received well by residents. In May, council announced its intention to retain the current sternwheeler logo. There were 2,340 responses to a survey about it. A total of 66 per cent of the respondents favoured using the sternwheeler and 34 per cent chose the stylized horse designed by the Ontario company.

In July 2019, the future Yukon University unveiled its new identity, leading up to the official university transition celebration in May 2020 when it became Canada’s first university North of 60.

As we close this period, the City continues to redefine itself and the territory to evolve, addressing the challenges of housing, transportation, health, education, communications, resources, and the many other facets of modern life.

By MURRAY LUNDBERG