Of all the stories from my years with the Whitehorse Star, there are two memories that I hang onto.

One might think there should be others.

Being the only journalist to report on the entire inaugural Yukon Quest. Covering Larry ‘Cowboy’ Smith’s run for glory in the Iditarod.

Drifting down the Yukon River on a homebuilt raft. Flying into the MacMillan Pass to look at the Hudson Bay’s newest mining properties. Running from venue to venue to writing desk to keep the public abreast of Whitehorse’s first hosting of the Arctic Winter Games.

Being the chronicler of a recreation of Schwatka’s 1883 journey into the Yukon. Walking in the bowels of the Whitehorse dam’s “fifth wheel.”

Photographing the official opening of the Dempster Highway. Standing on the Skagway and Dyea beach sets as they filmed an episode of The Love Boat.

Hanging backstage at Farrago and drinking beer with Ronnie Hawkins as they jammed in the bar at the ‘Tiltin’ Hilton.’ Building a better biffy.

But those are stories from my time with the Star and they are, in my mind, stories that I remember – but not memories. To me, memories are stories that make a difference in life.

The memories I have come from my first job with the Star as a paperboy — a experience that should have traumatized me for life — and the second had an impact on my life that resonates to this day.

The first is getting flattened by a dog.

The second is getting fired.

To my dying day I will never forget the beastly big dog, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth with a big slobbery smile on his face, as he galumphed* straight at me down the dark, tree lined, gravel road at the end of my paper route.

Then, a bounce or two in front of me, he would launch his front paws at my chest and knock me flat on the ground. Once he had me at his mercy, he would lick my face and jump around me in joyous circles.

When I regained my feet the Great Dane, who was the same size as I was, would galumph* alongside of me as I finished my journey to where civilization started again at the intersection of Tutshi and Teslin roads.

Then he would race off to wherever his home was (I never did figure out which house he came from) and wait for me to start this final leg of my paper route again the next day.

Not sure what he did on the days when the Whitehorse Star didn’t publish.

• Galumphed: Only a word a journalist, storyteller or a 13-year-old paperboy could come up with.

Describes the distinctive style of running that big, goofy dogs like Great Danes have, with both their back legs in the air with both front paws on the snow at the same time, then switching position in one wavy, twisty bound.

I had a long paper route.

It took me about an hour to walk the whole thing. But there actually weren’t many papers to deliver because, in the early 1960s, not a lot of people lived in Riverdale.

Twenty-six in total – funny how that number has stuck in my head for all these years.

The majority of my route was along Alsek Rd, starting at the Commissioner’s residence in Kluane Crescent and reaching all the way to the Campion’s house near the end of Alsek at the intersection with Teslin Rd.

I would drop off a paper, then trudge along gravel roads, past empty treed lots for a block or two and drop off a couple more.

It was a long walk from the Seeley’s house to the Campion house – which was my final delivery.

There were no other houses between the two.

There were also no streetlights in Riverdale yet so the walks in winter were cold and dark – which didn’t bother me one bit. I rather enjoyed that part.

Then I would walk down Teslin to get back home on Tutshi Road.

Alsek didn’t yet extend past that intersection, and nobody was even building on that end of Teslin.

The dog would lay in wait for me near the end of my walk down Teslin.

I enjoyed delivering the paper because I liked reading it. The fact that the Seeley’s would give me boxes of fruit pastilles at Christmas didn’t hurt either. I still like pastilles to this day.

And also because Anne Campion answered the door to take the paper and give me the money on collection day – Anne was about my age and I had a secret crush on her, which she never knew about and never learned about although we were acquaintances for over 40 years.

But my favourite part of the walk was getting levelled every day by a dog who, even on a miserable day, made me laugh, asked for nothing in return except a rub between the ears, and showed me the joy of unconditional love.

When I quit the paper route, I kept reading the paper because there was just something reassuring about the feel of newsprint in my hands and black ink on my fingers from turning the pages.

It turned me into a news junkie. I developed a need to know what was happening at home and elsewhere in the world that I still have today.

The radio news was OK, but to fit a story into a 30-second clip meant something had to be left out, and the television industry was in its infancy so the best way to get my daily fix was the paper.

It was that addiction that brought me back into the Star’s orbit after I graduated from high school in 1971.

Like most kids who are suddenly out of the school system and thrown into life without much warning, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted or could do out here in the real world.

So, I lived at my parents’ home, took part-time jobs where I could find them and spent my summer evenings doing what unfocused and lost teenagers do in summer evenings.

But that summer of seasonal employment and moral decay ended, and I was at loose ends heading into the fall.

I enjoyed playing and watching hockey … and reading the newspaper.

In the early 1970s, Whitehorse had a strong hockey culture and a lot of former Junior A hockey players working in town.

Jim Light Arena was filled literally to the rafters with fans watching Senior League teams battle it out on the ice on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons.

However, I noticed there was no sports coverage in the Whitehorse Star.

Star publisher Bob Erlam and editor Graham Connell were agreeable to the idea of myself writing sport stories when I suggested it to them in the Star building on Main Street.

At first, it was piece work. I was paid a flat fee for each article I wrote. They just wanted to see what I would produce. If it wasn’t good enough, they could decline it and not have to pay.

So, being a budding entrepreneur and sports reporter, I expanded my beat to every sport I could find.

It didn’t take long for Bob to realize it would cost him less to hire me as a full-time reporter.

So I had my first job as a writer and, because I was on salary, my reporting started moving beyond sports into covering the local drama and music scene and writing soft news stories and features.

Things seemed to clip along just tickety-boo. Graham was happy with my work and gave me my own desk – which was cool considering how small and cramped the office was. I worked well with him and the production staff.

I learned how to typeset from Helmer Samuelson and Gordie McKinnon. Linda Leas taught me how to type properly.

Thus I had no sense that anything was amiss when Bob asked me to come into his office one afternoon.

He didn’t beat around the bushes.

“You’re fired,” he said to me.

“Wha… Why?!!”

“Because you can do better than this. You’re a good writer. You have a good sense of story. But you can be better.

“I want you to get a better job for the summer. Make some money. Go to college or university and learn how to be a better writer. Get a little of life under your belt. Then come back and talk to me.”

I was still in shock when I left his office. My first job and I got fired!!

But I didn’t just listen to him. I heard him.

I did get a better paying job — working for the City of Whitehorse Sewer and Water Department – more the sewer part than the water, but that’s a whole other memory just on its own.

Went to university and became a better writer.

When I returned to journalism several years later — with a little of life under my belt — Bob was as good as his word and hired me back.

I only worked for the Star for five years before I left journalism behind, but I was privileged to associate with journalists such as Dennis Senger, Mary McGuire, Becky Striegler, Massey Padgham, John Pierce, Max Fraser, Rick VanSickle, Jim Beebe, Bernie Adilman, Michael Hale, Chuck Tobin, Jane Gaffin, Anne Tempelmann-Kluit, Edith Josie, Vince Federoff, and Jim Butler.

Most of the stories listed at the beginning of this piece came from that time.

As the sports editor, I had a love-hate relationship with Linda “Burnsy” Burns in lay-out and production, who knew more than I did (and probably still does!) and never failed to let me know.

Advertising manager (and eventual publisher) Jackie Pierce and I would have long, casual chats about the newspaper industry – which at the time, before social media warped the landscape, seemed to have a golden future.

Everywhere I look in my writing life I find influencers who had their roots in the Whitehorse Star.

Rollie Innes-Taylor, Rusty Erlam, and Flo Whyard to name just a few.

I probably already knew it at the time, but the years have taught me that Bob fired me for all the right reasons.

And he did it correctly. Had he just laid me off, I possibly wouldn’t have gotten the message. The shock factor was the trigger that changed my life.

Looking back now, with a few books and writing awards under that belt that Bob told me to put some life under, my time at the Star pretty much defined my writing career.

Thanks, Bob.

And thanks to an unnamed dog who may still be laying in wait for a paperboy to make an appearance in the dark.

Unfortunately, he’ll probably be waiting for a long time.

By JOHN FIRTH