Emil J. Forrest, 71, died of a heart attack at 11:35 a.am August 20, while helping launch the paddlewheeler Keno.
Mr. Forrest, retired from active navigation since 1947, was to pilot the sternwheeler in its historic voyage to Dawson City August 24. It
was to be his first time piloting a craft as large as the Keno, and likely the last voyage one of the old BYN paddlewheelers would make on the Yukon River.
Mr. Forrest began his career on the river in 1910, at the age of 21. He served as an assistant pilot on a motor launch charting the tricky
channel between Circle and Fort Yukon.
From 1914 to 1922 he carried mail from Dawson City to the mouth of the YUkon. After 1922 he did some prospecting in the Mayo and Carmacks area, and had
considerable mine interests in the Mayo region. He was employed as an airplane mechanic from 1929 to 1937 at Mayo.
The river called him back in 1941. He was made engineer aboard the Neecheah and later skipper of the Loon. The Loon, a BYN motor launch, was
used to make soundings on the river to make it safe for the giant paddlewheelers to follow through. When the Loon was pulled into Whitehorse drydock in 1947,
Mr. Forrest stayed on with White Pass as a night watchman.
Mr. Forrest came to the Yukon from Alberta with his family in 1901, at the age of 12, and went to school at Dawson City.
Funeral services were held in Whitehorse 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Old Log Church.
