Victoria, Yukon

Victoria (Gwich'in: bet'á húdza) is an allegedly haunted ghost town in the Canadian territory of Yukon, located on the southwestern bank of the Miner River, 170 km (105.6 mi) south of Old Crow. It is named after Queen Victoria of England and was largely populated by transient hunters and miners. The town served as a rest stop and gold exchange during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 19th century.

Pre-Establishment

The area that would later be known as Victoria had been long inhabited by Native Americans for centuries before Europeans arrived in the Americas. According to oral stories shared by Dene tribesmen, a long series of conflicts between different bands took place on the grounds, likely due to the high desirability of fertile and sheltered land along the southern portion of the Miner River. As a result of the bloody history, many came to believe that the land was cursed. Local legend documents sightings of 'shadow figures' lurking throughout the thick forests of the site for hundreds of years, and it was well known to be avoided by the people of the area. Locals called the land "Húret'ńle", or "darkness".

During the autumn of 1853, a large group of Dene stopped at a trading post 25 mi (40.2 km) southeast of the future town, where they purchased several muskets, blankets, and iron tools, on the promise that they return to the post next summer with a load of bear and elk pelts gathered along the fertile lands of the south Miner river. The band left the post the following morning, and began the long trek toward Húret'ńle by way of dogsled. By late summer the next year, and no word from the band, the traders set off to look for them and collect their payment of furs. The men arrived a few days later, only to discover a rather unexpected and disturbing scene; in the plot of land that would later make up the town lay the decaying remains of a large Dene encampment. Skeletons of dogs and elders rested 'eerily' in tents and scattered about the camp, yet no sign of any young men, women or children. Remnants of food and fires lay untouched in their place, as well as the guns and supplies the traders had sold them the year earlier. The men who witnessed the scene described it as though the tribe had simply got up and left, leaving their camp, dogs, and elderly behind. One man who journalled of the event spoke of the overwhelming sense of fright and unease that had engulfed the hunters as they traversed the site, and that they had chosen to leave the items they sold them at the camp — out of fear something might follow them home.

Founding

Victoria was officially founded as a settlement in 1898 by Abraham and Oliver Marlon, two brothers from Calgary, Alberta. The two had arrived at the site while panning for gold in the Miner River and had immediately taken a liking to it. The two would winter in Dawson City before returning the next year to establish a saloon and hotel, which they named Victoria, after the Queen of England. The Victoria soon began attracting large numbers of miners and hunters who had been working in the area with no access to civilization for months. By the second week of its opening, the Victoria had been completely booked and construction had already begun on an addition to its accommodation facilities. Word soon spread to other entrepreneurs wishing to capitalize on the influx of business brought to the area by the Klondike Gold Rush. Many more businesses began to arrive in the area, with its relatively flat ground and lush forests providing the perfect conditions for construction. By late 1898, the town had a population of over 500 people and eleven businesses: two saloons (including the Victoria), a bathhouse, two general stores, a trading post, a gold exchange, post office, butcher, stable, and blacksmith. The town was given the name Victoria, after the saloon that had first been established there.

By 1899, the population of Victoria was nearing 1,000, and the North-West Mounted Police had established a jailhouse and outpost in the town's vicinity. Forestry was a growing industry in the area, though numerous accidents from falling trees and malfunctioning equipment prevented any major felling company from taking an interest in the town. Gold mining, however, remained the dominant source of income and thousands of miners panned the waters of the aptly named Miner River.

End of the Gold Rush & Decline

By the end of 1899, though the amount of gold being pulled from the Miner River was decreasing, many people continued to arrive. Fights began to break out between different miners over alleged infringement on claims. The N.W.M.P. easily diffused these early conflicts, though as time wore on, the fighting became much more prevalent and intense. Miners would often accuse each other of stealing gold, and frequent brawls became the norm along the entirety of the southern Miner River. With the jailhouse filled to capacity, officers used the local blacksmith's shop as a makeshift holding area. In early autumn, an argument between two miners turned fatal after a man from Tennessee shot and killed a French-Canadian man over an allegedly stolen pickaxe. This event caused an uproar among other French-Canadians who felt as though the N.W.M.P. in the area were not as dedicated to protecting them as they were English and American miners. The men rioted, but were swiftly arrested and placed in the makeshift jail. However, later that night, a fire broke out in the rear section of the shop and immediately engulfed the dry wooden roof. Officers and volunteers attempted to douse the flames, but a lack of coordination and functioning buckets quickly resulted in the blaze growing much too fast for the men to control. Of the thirteen arrested, only four men would escape the fire, two of whom would later succumb to their injuries.

After the fire, and with the continued lack of gold being found in the area, many miners began to leave. The fighting, however, kept up with a vengeance, and several murders began to take place; one week after the fire, two men with Winchester Rifles stormed the cabin of a local hunter, shooting him numerous times. The two had intended to steal the man's land deed so they would have access to his mining claim. On September 18, a man by the name of Jean Lapitte entered the Victoria Saloon, armed with a revolver. He marched up to the second floor where he shot and killed five people before ultimately taking his own life. The event sent shockwaves throughout the far north, and had many questioning Lapittes' motive, though investigators suspected he had gone insane due to the isolation of the arctic. Miners remaining in the area continued to attack each other, while several others abandoned their claims and equipment and disappeared into the wilds of the Yukon without a trace.

By 1900, the population of Victoria had shrunk to just 50 people, most of whom were N.W.M.P. officers and postmen ordered to stay there by contract. Rumors circulated that the town was cursed, and workers stationed there claimed to have seen ghostly figures panning for gold along the river at night, while some others heard the sounds of screaming and a fire burning in the space where the blacksmith's shop had once stood. Gunshots could also be heard emanating from the Victoria at night, along with alleged muzzle flashes being sighted on the second floor. Visitors to the town often described the overwhelming sense of sadness and anguish they felt upon entering, and one man was said to have taken his own life because of it.

Abandonment & Later Years

In 1901, the Post Office was officially decommissioned, followed shortly by the police station. Following this, the only people left in Victoria were Abraham Marlon, who lived in a guest house on the second floor of his once lively saloon, and Jack Torrence, the owner of a local general store.

By 1905, Victoria had stopped appearing on Canadian and American maps; the roads that had once guided thousands of miners to the settlement reabsorbed by the dark forests surrounding them.

In 1907, a group of Dene men visited Victoria to check on Marlon, though upon entering the town, they discovered the saloon to be on fire. Rushing to locate Marlon, they allegedly came face to face with the ghost of Jean Lapitte, who yelled at them to leave. The men reported the incident to N.W.M.P. officers in Fishing Station, who arrived in the town shortly afterward. Finding the old bar burnt to a crisp, they searched for any sign of Marlon, but never found him or his body. The officers went to speak with Torrence, who apparently "looked as though he had not touched a bar of soap since the end of the gold rush, for we found it hard to distinguish him from the natives." Torrence repeatedly told officers he heard the sounds of whooping Indians, howling wolves and screaming men in the night. While trying to calm him down, a fire broke out in the abandoned bathhouse, prompting Torrence to run out of his store. Officers attempted to stop him but could not gain proper footing due to the deep snow. No sign of Torrence or Marlon was ever found, and subsequent searches for the two ended in the summer of 1908.

Now completely empty, Victoria remained untouched for several years, with stories of its supposedly haunted nature circulating throughout northern Canada and Alaska. In 1925, a Kutchin prospector by the name of Daniel Charge found refuge in the abandoned town during a particularly harsh snowstorm. He hurriedly made it out of the town early the next morning, and arrived in Dawson that evening. Charge told a harrowing tale of his night in Victoria, claiming to have seen the ghosts of the Marlon brothers and that of a murdered young woman, who claimed to have been strangled on the eastern bank of the Miner River outside the town. Charge also stated that he was accosted by dead Dene warriors, who "yelled, whooped, and glared at me with red eyes and ghastly pale skin." The story generated much media attention to for the abandoned town, with a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article claiming it to be "The Most Haunted Place in the Far North." In the summer of 1926, a group of men discovered the skeletal remains of a young woman on the Eastern bank of Miner River, 5 km (3.1 mi) northeast of Victoria. The discovery once again sent the media into a frenzy, as the event had "all but confirmed" Charge's story the year earlier. Who she was or why she was murdered remains a mystery.

In the late 1930s, a man named Georges Charbineaux adamantly claimed that the rumors surrounding Victoria were baseless, and set off to prove this by attempting to spend the summer in the old settlement. Charbineaux began his journey from Dawson on June 11, and would never be seen alive again. A search was launched in early September as Charbineaux had missed his return date by two weeks. A group of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (R.C.M.P.) officers discovered his remains in the back of Torrence's general store. According to the official report, Charbineaux's cause of death was "flash freezing," which many have come to question as the weather in the area at the time was not capable of freezing someone to death.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Victoria faded into relative obscurity, with only small groups of hunters and prospectors ever coming within 10 km (6.2 mi) of it. Media attention gained a sudden boost in 1993 when a group of canoe enthusiasts disappeared while traveling southward down the Miner River. The R.C.M.P. launched a search in the area, and located the emaciated remains of a woman named Heidi McCourt only 2 km (1.2 mi) south of Victoria. Only one of the four canoeists was found alive, a man named Andrew Laird, who had no recollection of what had happened to him or the group. The other two, a married couple named Travis and Leslie Barker, were never found. Locals claimed the "curse" had taken yet more victims, yet the R.C.M.P. has not officially pronounced the two dead to date. When asked about this, the agency has frequently declined to provide an explanation.

In 2008, a man from Toronto named Evgeny Malkovich decided to travel to Victoria in yet another attempt to disprove allegations of the paranormal, with plans to return by September 5 of that year. Malkovich decided to record his experiences along the journey with a camcorder, and began filming on his way north from Dawson. The beginning of his journey consisted of a bush plane flight to Fishing Station, a semi-occupied hunting station on the Gwich'in No. 5 Reserve. Malkovich would then hike the remaining 70 km (43.5 mi) northeast toward Victoria. He reached the town by early July and found it to be completely deserted. In one of his recordings, Malkovich commented on the eerie feeling the town gave off, as well as capturing footage of the remains of the Victoria Saloon, and jokingly poking fun at Jean Lapitte.

Malkovich was officially reported missing on September 15, ten days after he had not returned home by the scheduled date. A search was immediately launched throughout Victoria and a surrounding 10 km (6.2mi) radius. A total of 211 volunteers searched the thick boreal pine groves until the following November, as the increased snowfall severely limited the volunteers' ability to conduct a proper search. Malkovichs' remains were never found, though his camcorder was located in the rear of one of the abandoned buildings. The film contained on the device documented the chilling final moments of the explorer; a Frantic Malkovich was seen running hurriedly down the main street, repeatedly claiming "It's behind me," and "It's gonna kill me," while a fire was seen burning in the distance. The recording was cut short when Malkovich suddenly dropped the camera in the abandoned building where it was found.

Malkovich was officially presumed dead on January 5, 2009 and his official cause of death was ruled to be exposure. Many disagree with this claim, however, and state that the "curse" was responsible for taking another victim. It is ultimately unknown what happened to Evgeny Malkovich, though his disappearance continues to intrigue investigators and paranormal enthusiasts alike to this day.

Victoria remains an abandoned settlement in the Canadian far north, and is currently situated on the Gwich'in No. 7 and property of the No. 7 band of Dene Indians. It has not been visited since 2009.