Boyle became a prominent benefactor in the community. He was one of the founders of the DAAA, the huge sporting complex that included a theatre, a hockey arena and an indoor swimming pool, which would host many a fundraiser during the war. He sponsored a hockey team, the Dawson Nuggets, which challenged the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup in 1905. They lost, but the epic journey to get to Ottawa for the matches has become part of Stanley Cup lore.57
When war was declared in August 1914, Boyle was ready for the challenge. Again, he foresaw the future and determined that he would sponsor a machine gun detachment of fifty men. He was not alone in his endeavour. At the same time, wealthy sponsors elsewhere in Canada were doing precisely the same thing, and his detachment would eventually join the ranks of the Bordon and Eaton Batteries in the fields of France.
He sent a telegram to Sam Hughes, the minister of militia and defence, who responded on September 2, accepting Boyle’s offer.58 Hughes had, at this time, a single purpose: to prepare Canada for war. Hughes also demanded that the Canadians sent overseas not be broken up and mixed with British units but remain as discrete Canadian units throughout the war. Boyle had a similar interest for his volunteers and also insisted that his unit was to be a specialist force, trained in the use of machine guns.
Within four days of Hughes’s response, Andrew Hart, the Dawson City fire chief, acting as recruiting officer, started enrolling men in Boyle’s Dawson brigade. At first, they were known as “the Boyle detachment.”
Boyle was heaped with praise in an editorial in the Dawson Daily News:
Unbounded credit is due to Joseph Whiteside Boyle for his more than generous and patriotic contribution which makes it possible for Yukon to have a brigade in the great conflict. Mr. Boyle is a true Yukoner, a loyal Canadian and a sterling Britisher. His contribution proves him a man of action and a power for good in his country’s service. If every wealthy Canadian did as much, Canada could place ten times as many men in the field as she has since the war has opened. The boys who are going in the Boyle Yukon contingent have not the wealth to give, but they are giving even more—their lives if need be.59
The News also suggested that a rally be held honouring the volunteers before they left Dawson: “The boys of Boyle’s Yukon Brigade are the lions of the hour. Give them a grand sendoff. Give them a bully time. Give them the heart of Yukon. Sound the drums, strike up the pipes—send the boys to war with colours flying—buoyant with the fire of Britain, keen with the zeal of Canada, stirred with the spirit of Klondike, fast in the love of Yukon.”60
Boyle received a telegram from Hughes stating that the men should be shipped Outside as soon as possible. He determined that his volunteers could depart upstream for Whitehorse on the steamer Casca, whose last voyage of the season was scheduled for October 7 or 8. Winter comes early to the Yukon, and any later in the month the river would be congested with ice floes. From Whitehorse, they would take the train to Skagway, thence travel by ship to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. By the end of September, recruiter Hart could announce that thirty-eight Dawson men had passed the physical examination and would be joined by a dozen others in Whitehorse so that the contingent would be fifty strong upon leaving the territory.
Big plans were afoot for a community send-off for “Boyle’s Boys.” Commissioner Black called for a large get-together to offer them a proper celebration of their departure. School superintendent Thomas Bragg said that the schoolchildren were practising patriotic songs to be sung as the Casca sailed away, and the Boy Scouts would all turn out in full uniform. The Dawson brass band would join the event, and bagpiper Johnny MacFarlane sent a call to the gold-mining creeks for other pipers to join him for the farewell.61
Joe Boyle sponsored the formation of a machine gun detachment from the Yukon, which later became the Yukon Machine Gun Battery. Here, they are assembled, without uniforms, behind the courthouse in Dawson City. Yukon Archives George Black fonds 81/107 #148
A mascot was chosen to accompany the unit. It was a dog named Jack, which was purchased by territorial councillor George Williams from Bill Ferguson, the Glacier Creek mail carrier.62 (Sadly, Jack, who had been raised in the wilds of the Fortymile goldfields, would be killed by a train when the Boyle unit was in England.) They also had a song—John Dines, “Dawson’s troubadour,” adapted the well-known song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” for Boyle’s Yukon Brigade with the following lyrics:
It’s a long way to dear old Klondike,
It’s a long way to go;
It’s a long way to golden Yukon—
To the homeland of the sourdough.
You may sing of Tipperary,
Strand and Leicester Square
It’s a longer mush to old Klondike,
But my heart’s right there.63
The entire community became involved in this body of men and their imminent departure. Slides of “Joe Boyle’s Yukon Contingent” were to be shown in the Family Theatre in the DAAA building on the evening of October 7. The new patriotic slides would honour the contingent, all of whom would be guests of the management.64
Fred Congdon, the former Liberal member of parliament, had dropped off one hundred dollars at the Dawson News to start a “pocket fund” for the men of the Boyle unit, intended to pay for things not covered by their wealthy benefactor. The Dawson Daily News of September 26 noted that this money would add to the comforts of these heroic volunteers, and the community was to be applauded, but went on to add:
But the one great point which will send the men to the front most appreciative of their home will be the satisfaction of knowing that they left with every heart in Klondike accompanying them. They deserve it. And they deserve a genuine ovation as every fraternal society, every civic body, every man, woman and child of the Yukon should rise and cheer the men who go forth to battle for the preservation of all that means the life of Britain, the perpetuity of civilization and the continued prosperity and very existence of this happy realm.65
By October 12, the pocket fund had increased to more than $1,500, meaning that each Boyle volunteer would receive $31 from the fund. It didn’t stop there. Fifty women met at Government House to make “housewives” for each of the men of the Boyle detachment. These small domestic kits sewn by the women contained needles, thread, buttons, pins, shoelaces and other things that the men might need once away from home. During the same meeting, the ladies formed the Women’s Patriotic Service League, which would continue to meet periodically for the duration of the war for fundraising, or “as the necessity for concentration arises.”66
The day of their embarkation was steadily approaching. The evening of Tuesday, October 6, the community turned out en masse to celebrate the pending departure of the volunteers. It was a gala affair: the gaily decorated Arctic Brotherhood Hall was filled to capacity. Schoolchildren occupied the first four rows of chairs in front of the stage, and many women were scattered in the crowd.
The volunteers were seated on the stage; a giant Union Jack hung above them. Flags for the allied nations were hung from the mezzanine that overlooked them. Commissioner Black spoke of the generous donations given by Yukoners, especially those of Joe Boyle. He then referred to the “unbounded contribution of the men who have offered their lives in Yukon for their country.”67 This remark was followed by an outburst of applause.
Black further stated that Britain might have retained peace had Germany not violated its treaty with Belgium, but Britain was unwavering, and when Belgium was invaded, she took up the sword, and volunteers were rallying from every corner of the empire. “Wherever the Yukon boys go in their campaign for the Empire,” he said, “they may rest assured that they carry with them the hearts and hopes of Yukon.”68
With reluctance, Joe Boyle then told the crowd it wasn’t his place