DCHP-1 Online

Yukon [< Athapaskan: Kutchin yuk, dyuk river + -on great, big; cp. Klondike]

• 1 n. Fur Trade, Hist. a department of the Hudson's Bay Company in the region now known as the Yukon Territory. Usually spelled Youcon.

  See also: Yukon Territory  

  • 1851  . . . the Youcon outfit which had been rendered there from Peel River last winter was loaded into the Youcon boat.
  • 1861  A few remarks therefore, may not be out of place, or unwelcome to your readers upon a journey that I have just made to the Youcon, with a short descriptive sketch of the character and habits of the Indian tribes of that part of the country.

• 2 n. Hist. from 1895 to 1898, a provisional district of the Northwest Territories.

  • 1897  Two new provisional districts or territories have recently been erected in the far northwest by the Canadian government. The first is that called Mackenzie, lying to the north of Athabasca, and extending westward to the summit of the Rockies. The second is called Yukon, and extends westward from the summit of the Rockies to the 141st degree of longitude, and northward from the northern boundary of British Columbia.

• 3 n. a territory in Northwestern Canada, established June 13, 1898.

  See also: Yukon Territory  

  • c1957  The Yukon, which gets its name from the Indian word "Yuckoo" meaning clear water, comprises the extreme northwestern part of the mainland of Canada, and has an area of 207,076 square miles, or 5.6% of the total area of the country.
  • 1910  Youcon is one of several variants of the name now settled as Yukon, that form having been adopted by both the Canadian and American Boards on Geographic Names. The name was first applied by John Bell, of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1846, as he understood it.
  • 1958  The Russians were the first on the river, in 1834, but they cared not a hoot for gold; no more than the natives who had given the river its name of Yukon, meaning "The Greatest."
  • 1965  "Guess you know the name 'Yukon' means 'Great River.' Well, you don't know nothin' about the Great River till you see that ice go."