Trail #1 - Overland Trail, Km. 30

Little River

Photo from Little River

The Little River Roadhouse was 65 kilometres north of Whitehorse on the Overland Trail. The Whitehorse Star lists Little River as “Gordon's Roadhouse” in 1902. W. A. Puckett was the sole owner of the Takhini and Little River Roadhouses between 1905 and 1908.

When White Pass & Yukon Route lost the winter mail service contract to Dan Coates and Otto Kastner in 1920, they leased them their buildings along the Overland Trail. White Pass owned only the stable at Little River and estimated the value of the building and contents at $300 - not the best barn in the line, but not the worst either.

In 1952, a civilian working for the Canadian Airforce was on the Overland Trail looking for two lost hunters. He examined the abandoned Little River Roadhouse and found that the main floor had a common room and a dining room/kitchen. Dishes, utensils and pots and pans scattered about and the walls were papered with newspaper clippings dating from 1910. There were at least four bedrooms upstairs. The stable, to the north of the roadhouse, had 16 stalls with mangers and feed boxes. The Caterpillar type tractor was in place. All of the buildings burned during a forest fire in 1958.

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