Fonds F0653 - Bud Dawson fonds

Clair W. "Bud" Dawson, 1882-1951, was born in Albany, Oregon, USA. In 1912 he visited relatives in Ponoka, and while in Alberta was hired by the Edmonton-based Northern Trading Company. He spent three years engaged in fur trading for the company in the area of Fort Smith, NWT. He visited his family in Oregon in 1915. In 1916 he made a 22,400 kilometre fur trading trip from Edmonton, down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean, around Alaska, and down the west coast to Seattle. The trip took seven and a half months, and he came out with over $20,000 worth of furs. In 1919 he was trading at Lac La Biche, and later that year he moved to Hazelton, British Columbia, where he opened a store for Lamson and Hubbard, fur buyers. In the 1922 he married Isabell Lenora Robson, 1892-1968. The Dawsons operated the Omineca Hotel in Hazelton for many years, until it was destroyed by fire in 1931. They then ran a general store called WeHaveIt Store on the same site.