Tantalus Butte Coal Mine, Yukon

    In 1894, George Carmack was tunnelling into the hill across from Carmacks for a supply of coal that he sold to prospectors for their blacksmithing chores. The Five Finger Mine, downriver near Five Finger Rapids, was developed during the Klondike Gold Rush, but attention turned again to the Tantalus Mine when Captain Charles E. Miller stated mining coal to power his small fleet of sternwheelers.
    In 1903, a Dawson City businessman, George De Lion, started mining the site and managed to ship 24 tons of coal to Dawson City where the Dawson Electric Light and Power company became a customer. The Yukon population was declining and there was so little freight by 1918 that the steamers were running without barges unless they were hauling coal, and the demand for coal in Dawson was weakening. The British Yukon Navigation Company sternwheelers started hauling coal to Whitehorse for company use but production dropped in 1918 below 1,000 tons and continued to fall until the mine closed in the 1920s.