Margaret “Maggie” (Wood) Wallingham

Margaret Elizabeth Wood or perhaps, Margaret Rose Mason-Wood (birth certificates were not reliable for a variety of reasons in those days) was born in Dawson City on April 16, 1937, after her mother made the trip over the trail from Mayo.

Maggie’s mother, Rose Mason Wood, was from the Mayo area, of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun. Maggie’s father, Sam Mason-Wood, was an immigrant from England. Maggie grew up with her older sister, Eileen, and younger brother, Si, as well as hundreds of cousins, aunts and uncles.

Maggie had an idyllic childhood growing up out of town where many old miners had small log cabins along the road to their house. Maggie loved stopping in to warm up and have a chat on her way home from school. She had lovely stories about Hot Stove Douglas and Ben Cameron. Once Maggie got too close to the wood stove and burnt a hole in the back of her wool coat which her mom, Rose, had to redesign because to buy a new coat in the middle of the winter in Mayo was impossible. Rose often knitted and remade old dresses or pants into new clothes for the children.

Maggie said it was a great Saturday when she got to go with Joe Longtin on his rounds of delivering water or hay used for root cellars that had bricks of ice kept in hay.

Maggie met Dick Wallingham in 1953. Dick had travelled from Pitt Meadows, B.C., to work for United Keno Hill Mines. Maggie and Dick were married in August, 1954, when Maggie was seventeen and in the next four years they had three children: Elaine, Sam, and Walter. They leased the Chateau Mayo from Alek Wark. 

Along with Roxie Carrier, Maggie cooked in the café, cleaned the rooms and did payrolls for the hotel staff. They eventually bought the hotel and managed it until 1987 when it burnt down in the spring. They worked together for all those years and Ruth McIntyre said they always made a good team.

Maggie and Dick were married for 54 years when Dick died in January 2006.

The Chateau Mayo was a social hub for all those years. So many of Mag’s and Dick’s dear friends were involved throughout the years. They worked with Roxie in the early years when Maggie was too young to work behind the bar. For a few years Gina and Luigi Cambiotta ran the restaurant before they moved to Keno. Other years, Aunt Bess, Aunt Dorothy, Bella Peters and Helen Buyck ran the restaurant. Maggie worked with her good friend Dennis McCrae, and she mentored many young students who worked with her over their summer holidays. Maggie was especially proud of Louie Drapeau, a Mayo boy who worked at the Chateau and who was her life-long friend.

Ruth McIntyre, who had been Maggie’s schoolteacher and later had owned the variety store, which was connected to the Chateau, was Maggie’s kindred spirit and close friend. They were even neighbours at the Whistle Bend Care facility for a few months before Maggie died. While they were at Whistle Bend, Ruth and Mag reminisced about the old days and old characters who came through the Mayo, Keno and Elsa area and left their mark.

Ruth and Maggie once had a road trip to Calgary and Edmonton when Maggie was just sixteen years old and there were no bridges and only gravel roads. Maggie did most of the driving and wasn’t afraid of anything Ruth said.

Maggie loved life. She was an optimist at heart and was always up for an adventure. She loved gardening and came from a long line of gardeners. Dick would say that one of Maggie’s tomatoes was worth at least ten dollars because of all the time she put into experimenting with different varieties and techniques.

She loved camping. Many of her favourite memories were living in a tent on a creek cleaning fish, or harvesting a moose in the fall, or picking berries. She loved her camp at Ethel Lake and later her cabin there.

Before the road was built to Ethel Lake, Mag and Dick would rent a plane to take the family to the lake for the summer. Often cousins or old timers from the hotel would go along. Those summer adventures turned into magnificent memories of sleeping in wall tents and hunting and fishing from a little tin boat. Her favourite travelling partners were her Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack and their many stories continue to be re-told and will keep us laughing for the rest of our lives.

For several summers, Uncle Jack got the contract to clean and supply wood to the campgrounds from Moose Creek to Ethel Lake. Mag would pack a lunch, and along with Walter, a nephew, and Jack and Mary’s grandchildren, she would go to help. Black and dirty from the wood hauling, they would scrub off in the creek and make a bonfire.

Once or twice a busload of tourists stopped to take photos of them by the creek and photos of the boys with their fish. Mag and Mary laughed about that and wondered what the tourists told their families about those photos when they returned home.

Maggie had a good mixture of humour, wit, cheeriness and kindness. She would say she had never heard of being depressed or bored. Although we sometimes thought she was too busy working to ever have time to be bored. Maggie could out work just about anybody. She would be up by six in the morning putting the coffee on in the café ready for the Government road crews when they came in for breakfast. She would have ten different pies and cinnamon buns for the coffee breaks at the round table, and she would be the last one to leave at night after mopping the floors and cleaning up.

In 1987, when the hotel burnt down, Mag and Dick were in shock for a while. They pondered re-building, but even though they were still young, they felt worn out from the long hours and serving the public for 35 years.

Maggie was ready for a new adventure, so with some coaxing, she convinced Dick to move to Whitehorse where they retired and enjoyed their grandchildren. They were the best grandparents a child could ask for.

Of course, Maggie didn’t stop working hard around her house and garden as well as taking on little jobs at the diet center, as a member on the social services board, or sitting with Mayo people when they were in the hospital in Whitehorse. She was with Dr. J.V. Clark in his last days, as well as Gordon McIntyre, the husband of Ruth, an historian and good friend.

Mag and Dick always had visitors from Mayo and the South and travelled during this period of their lives. They went to Texas to stay with Red and Phyllis Rogers and to the Cayman Islands. They visited Hawaii several times—Mag just loved the beaches and restaurants. They visited Australia and caught up with long-lost relatives in New Zealand.

After Dick died, Maggie stayed on in the big house in Riverdale for a few years before she found a condo with a garden she could manage.

Maggie always had something delicious to eat when anyone popped in. She had one grandchild or another over every day.

Maggie continued taking her little camper to Wolf Creek or Ethel Lake in the summers to pick berries and to be close to the land.

Maggie would knit, crochet and quilt. She made mittens for homeless people and made beautiful afghans for all her children and grandchildren. She started oil painting when she ran out of other crafts to master and became a fine landscape artist. Her paintings of Ethel Lake and her cabin are beautiful examples of her skills.

Maggie will always be remembered for her warmth and sense of humor, her stories, helpful advice, cozy couch, and her comforting food. She had immense knowledge of the Mayo lineage and how we were all connected.