Digital Bob Archive

The Queen's Birthday, as it was known for many years, gets little attention in Juneau nowadays. That was not always true. The British holiday which is observed by Canadians is now known as Victoria Day and is one of those weekend holidays instead of falling regularly on May 24 which was the actual birthday of the good Queen Victoria who reigned from 1837 until 1901.

Whitehorse observed the holiday each year with a parade, sports events, and a dance, and in some years, at least, the White Pass Railway whipped up a special excursion from Skagway for the occasion. It was not until 1921 that Juneau began to participate. Glen Bartlett, who was then manager of the Gastineau Hotel, seems to have been the sparkplug for the idea, but the owners of the Juneau Ferry & Navigation Company probably needed little persuasion.

The company's big ferry, the Alma, was considerably underused, especially since 1917 when the Treadwell mine caved in and ferry traffic was severely curtailed. In 1921 the Alma and the railroad, and the vessel left Juneau Friday evening with a passenger list of around 50 including what were described as \"20 young people,\" a jazz orchestra and a baseball team picked from the various teams of the Gastineau Channel League. There was a brief stop at Haines, then a dance at Skagway that evening, and the train left at 5 o'clock Saturday morning with 322 passengers on board.

May 24, 1921, fell on Tuesday but the celebration at Whitehorse was set for the following weekend. Bartlett arranged a joint fare on the Alma and the railroad, and the vessel left Juneau Friday evening with a passenger list of around 50 including what were described as \"20 young people,\" a jazz orchestra and a baseball team picked from the various teams of the Gastineau Channel League. There was a brief stop at Haines, then a dance at Skagway that evening, and the train left at 5 o'clock Saturday morning with 322 passengers on board.

The White Pass Athletic Association was in charge of the program at Whitehorse, with Saturday afternoon devoted to baseball and other sports events. The army team from Fort William H. Seward beat Whitehorse 14-2; the Juneau team squeaked past Skagway 4-3, and the army trimmed Juneau 12-0 and was declared the champion. R.J. Suratt of Wrangell, a field man for Pathe and Fox newsreels, took footage of the ball games and other events but it is not known whether it was ever shown nationally.

There was a big dance in Whitehorse Saturday night, the train returned to Skagway on Sunday afternoon and the Alma reached Juneau about 6 o'clock Monday morning after what was described as a rough trip.

The excursion to Whitehorse became a popular annual event during the next eight or nine years, until the Great Depression dictated its demise. The attraction of Whitehorse had been very considerably enhanced, inadvertently, by the voters of the Territory of Alaska who had opted for the Alaska Bone Dry Law, so that the most accessible legal drink lay north of the Canadian border.