North Klondike Highway

Km 464.9 - Pelly River

Pelly Crossing

The Northern Tutchone-speaking people who now live at Pelly Crossing, traditionally led a nomadic life in the lower Pelly River area. When Robert Campbell established Fort Selkirk, the site was already a meeting place for trading with the coastal Tlingit First Nations. The Huchá Hudän, "people of the flat country", started to settle there on a seasonal basis, drawn by the facilities and jobs at wood camps and on the paddlewheelers. A solitary post grew to a thriving community.

The original homestead at Pelly Crossing was Ira and Shorty Van Bibber's family home at Mica Creek. A road was constructed north from Whitehorse in the 1950s and Pelly Crossing was established as a ferry crossing and highway construction camp. With the completion of the road, Fort Selkirk was virtually abandoned and the Selkirk First Nation settled at Pelly Crossing. The Selkirk First Nation Council administers Pelly Crossing. The Final Land Claims and Self-Government agreements were signed at Minto in 1997.

The Hudson's Bay Company on the Pelly River

Robert Campbell was a Hudson's Bay Co. clerk at Fort Halkett, on the Liard River, in May 1840. After receiving instructions to explore the upper Liard River, he and seven companions paddled north to Frances Lake, travelled overland past Finlayson Lake and, upon reaching the Pelly River, built a raft and poled a short distance downstream. Pelly Banks post was constructed at the head of the Pelly River in 1846 and Campbell spent the next two winters there.

In June 1843, Campbell set out again and explored the Pelly River to its mouth. First Nation stories of fierce warriors living down river discouraged Campbell from exploring further on that trip. In the winter of 1847/48, Campbell established Fort Selkirk at the mouth of the Pelly River. The first site was in low land that flooded regularly and so the post was moved across the Yukon River in 1852. In the same year, rival coastal Tlingit traders attacked the post and it was abandoned.

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