The Hootalinqua Community

During the Klondike Gold Rush, the North-West Mounted police established post along the Yukon River to look for illegally inported goods and check on the safety of travellers. Two constables were left at Hootalinqua in the fall of 1897 with some tools and rations and instructions to build a post. Hootalinqua grew into a busy administrative and service centre for the neighbouring mining community of Livingstone. By 1903, with the stampede over, three constables and 11 dogswere busy patrolling and deliverin mail. As the Yukon population waned, so did the importance of Hootalinqua. The Hootalinqua detachment was among the first of the police river post to close.

Workers at the Hootalinqua Island shipyard, just downtream, were the backbone of the community. When the shipyard closed, the winter population dropped to two or three families with full time residence in the community. 

Captain John Hoggan and his family lived at Hootalinqua from 1910 to 1916. Hoggan looked after the boats stored for the winter at the shipyard and was a captain on the sternwheelers during the summer. By the 1930s there was just one old prospector living at Hootalinqua in the summer.