I began my career at the Whitehorse Star in January of 1972. Right out of high school at age 17, I headed north where one of my sisters lived.

I applied for several jobs upon my arrival and was hired at the Star by long-time owner/publisher Bob Erlam. The pay was $2.35/hour.

Good money in those days.

I began by pasting up ads and was trained by Bob to layout the pages of the twice weekly newspaper. The equipment was crude and primitive but did the job. The typesetter was a man named Helmer Samuelson, who was wheelchair bound due to double leg amputations.

He was a salty old guy who made us laugh constantly. Helmer’s passing was a blow to us all and was the first funeral in my young life.

The Star offices were located above a stationary store on Main Street at the time, with the presses on the main floor. I remember watching the smoke from the burning paddle wheel boats on the banks of the Yukon River from the window in the early 1970s. I wept while staring out the same window the day the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. Local and more global events came and went, all reported in the Star.

We did commercial printing at the time and I actually set metal type from old wooden type cases. Bob’s son, Paul, taught me how to run an old plate press.

This was one step above carving words in stone, or so I thought.

We also put together and printed several smaller newspapers for various communities including Watson Lake, Atlin and Inuvik.

The economy of the Yukon flourished and we began to publish the paper three times a week. Eventually we moved to the current Second Avenue location and later began printing the paper daily from Monday to Friday. We started to carry more national and international news and it was brought into the newsroom via ticker tape as well as hard copy. When there was a breaking news story, an alarm would sound on the incoming teletype machines and we would all gather around and read it line by line as it came literally hot off the wire.

By this time I was the production manager and was responsible for pulling all the ad copy and news together and laying out each issue. Christmas time would often see us putting out editions of over 60 pages.

The photo typesetters we used were enormous machines as big as a fridge. They were operated by massive boards composed of silicon chips resembling multi-legged insects.

When things went wrong I spent many long hours on the phone to Mississauga, Ont., getting directions from technicians how to pull and replace these chips. When I couldn’t repair these machines, we would have to pay big bucks to fly a technician to Whitehorse to fix the problem.

The Star hired many young journalists and others who I believe always remember their time at the Star fondly. In my production department, the ability to play softball was important to getting hired. We had a team in a local league we started for Mixed Media Slow Pitch. The Star’s team was called the Rats (Star backwards). Our outings on the field were meant to be fun … and they were.

There was always music playing in the production office and the beer fridge was always full on Fridays. We mocked the slow news days and threatened to run the headline: “Dog Barks in Porter Creek.”

I left the paper in 1988 and have remained in touch with many of my former workmates. I moved to Vancouver and after a couple of typesetting gigs, I trained with BC Transit and became a bus driver in 1990. Now retired after 25 years, I often think of my time at the Star with a smile.

I’m almost 70 years old now and to see the Star close after its long history pulls at my heartstrings and compelled me to travel to Whitehorse to commemorate the final edition. I still wear the gold nugget sluice box ring the Erlams gifted me on my 21st birthday. I worked along side Jackie Pierce and her family when she took over the paper and watched her children grow from babies to adults, many of them grand parents today. The Star was a huge part of my life and will remain in my memory with affection forever.

I hope I get to visit with many of my former colleagues and friends during my brief visit.

By LINDA BURNS