Soap helped move the S.S. Klondike through Whitehorse in 1966. The retired sternwheeler left the shipyards on steel runners, pulled overland to the waterfront site where it stands today. Parks Canada’s history records soap flakes as part of that move. [1]
For Chuck Morgan, who supervised the job, the material had an advantage over grease. In an account republished in the Moccasin Telegraph in June 2003, Sam Holloway reported Morgan’s recollection that the dampened flakes stayed beneath the load instead of squeezing out. Wooden pads—called “butter boards” in the account—carried a steel carriage under the boat. Holloway traced that steel to the collapsed Peace River bridge. [2]
Where is this place?
S.S. Klondike National Historic Site, Whitehorse. This map locates the town or region, not a verified exact historic event site.
The pads did not form a permanent track. Donna Clayson, writing in the same issue about watching the 1966 move, described a mechanical fork picking them up behind the vessel and setting them down ahead. She remembered power and telephone lines being rerouted, and a route that crossed a motor dealership’s lot and the lawn of the former hospital residence. [2]
The boat itself already contained salvaged parts. After the first Klondike wrecked in 1936, workers recovered machinery and much of its superstructure. Parks Canada’s construction photographs document the old paddlewheel shaft being fitted to the replacement vessel, launched in 1937. Following its working life and overland move, Klondike II was restored to that 1937 configuration and opened to the public in 1981. [1]
