An Explorer's Guide to Whitehorse, Yukon
Dateline: August 2, 2026. Last update: August 28, 2026.
Today, Haeckel Hill is best known as the site of four wind turbines. The first turbine, a Bonus 150 kW, was erected in July 1993, then a Vestas V47-660 kW joined it on the hill in September 2000. They were both torn down when the current ones were erected in 2023. Going back a few decades, though, people knew Haeckel Hill as the site of a forest fire lookout tower that was manned during the summer.
The ridge that is known as Haeckel Hill actually doesn't have a name - Haeckel Hill is the next ridge to the northwest, the north end of the Mount Sumanik Massif, separated from the turbines by a deep valley. Haeckel Hill was named in 1883 by U.S. Army Lieutenant Fredrick Schwatka, for Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-1919), a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. The Southern Tutchone name for the hill is Thay T'äw ("Eagles' Nest").
We have as yet been unable to determine when the first forest fire lookout tower was built in Canada, but in May 1921 an old tower overlooking Skiff Lake, New Brunswick was rebuilt (The Daily Gleaner, Fredericton, May 30, 1921) - we have not found a date for the original but it seems probable that it predated the next one we have documented. That was a tower 125 feet high built "in the mining region east of Lake Winnipeg" for F. H. Herchmer, Inspector of Dominion Forest Reserves, in April 1919 (The Edmonton Journal, April 16, 1919). The third one of note is a 60-foot tower built near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, in April 1921, with the New Brunswick Railway and Fraser Companies assisting the federal government in the construction (The Daily Telegraph, St. John, April 27, 1921).
On August 17, 1923, a demonstration of the use of radio and airplane in the detection and fighting of forest fires was conducted for the British Empire Forestry
conference at Temagami, Ontario. This combination of tools would ultimately end the usefulness of many of the lookout towers.
In 1954 a lookout tower was built on Haeckel Hill, but we haven't found a photo or even a description of it. In 1961 the current structure was built.
Canada's Fire Lookouts lists 12 lookout towers in the Yukon (13 are listed but Tagish is duplicated). With the date of construction they are: (Dome, Dawson City (1963); Ferry Hill/Raspberry Hill, Stewart Crossing (1962); Haeckel Hill, Whitehorse (1954); Jubilee Mountain, Tagish (1962); Kusawa, Mile 960 Alaska Highway (1983); Mount Haldane, Mayo (1983); Mount Ross, Ross River (1982); Murray Mountain, Carmacks (1964); Paint Mountain, Haines Junction (no date); Ptarmigan Mountain, Pelly Crossing (1982); Tom Creek, Watson Lake (1962); Transport Creek, Alaska Highway (1964).
In the 2014 season, 6 of the Yukon's 9 fire towers were staffed regardless of fire risk on a five-days-on, two-days-off basis, and seven days a week when the fire danger was moderate, high or extreme. Those towers were Ferry Hill in the Mayo-
Stewart Crossing area, the Dome in Dawson City, Murray Mountain at Carmacks, Tom Creek tower at Watson Lake, the Tagish tower and Haeckel Hill in Whitehorse. The 3 remaining towers, Transport, Ptarmigan, and Paint Mountain, were only staffed when the fire
danger was high or extreme.
In 2026, the Haeckel Hill tower is still used by Wildland Fire as a local VHF repeater and a UHF link to another repeater near Teslin.
Haeckel Hill lookout staff:
- Hugh Birch: 1954 to June 9, 1956
- Harry Burnett: briefly from June 16, 1956
- Don Green: dates not known
- Dawn Bouquot: 2004-2018
Photos of the Forestry Lookout Tower, 1995-2026
