Arthur Henry Sovereign, the third Bishop of Yukon, and the sixth Bishop of Athabasca, acquired a 16 mm motion picture camera upon his departure from Vancouver in 1932. Bishop Sovereign used the camera to record images of life in Dawson City and Peace River.~Dawson City, located northwest of Whitehorse on the Klondike Highway, was discovered in 1896 as a result of the Klondike Gold Rush. Bishop Sovereign's connection to Dawson City lay in his election as Bishop of Yukon in 1931. Living in Dawson City for a period of less than ten months, Bishop Sovereign recorded many scenes from the city and surrounding area including: a caterpillar tractor which at one time pulled mail sleds across 400 miles, from Whitehorse to Dawson, a trip which took two to three weeks in temperatures dropping to 40 and 50 degrees below zero; children from the [Carcross] Indian Reservation School playing on an old machine; a tractor pulling a boat; dog teams; a rare car at Dawson; buildings at [Carcross] Indian Reservation School; an Anglican priest, his wife, child and dog; a ferry and the Hudson Bay Company building at Dawson City; a blind man named Martin and his dog on a leash in Dawson City; churchgoers coming to and from church, including the wife to the second Bishop of Yukon, Mrs. Stringer; a bridge from across the Peace River; children playing on a teeter-totter at [Carcross] School; one of the first outboard motors used on a boat in the north; dog team and puppies at Dawson City; eight-year-old Art Sovereign, son of filmmaker, with husky dog, mother and sisters; church at Dawson City; the Anglican Young Peoples Association (AYPA), a youth group; the Indian dormitory at Dawson City; eight-year-old Art Sovereign, sisters and friends skating on pond at Dawson City; dredge tailings on the Klondike River intended to process the alluvial gravels after the mines have moved on, leaving behind tailing piles; a rare plane from Yukon River; tripod on frozen river that indicated movement of ice in and out; bridge at Dawson across the Klondike River, half of which was demolished by the river; a crowd of well wishers waving goodbye to those travelling on the tractor-train, including Bishop Arthur Henry Sovereign and Sergeant Demster.~There is also footage of a miner and Ellen Sovereign, wife to Arthur, panning for gold; eight-year-old Art Sovereign and his sisters, one of which may be Beth Sovereign-Nelson, at the Sovereign home in Dawson City, now a tourist attraction; caribou caught on the ice at Dawson; a shot from the scar-faced mountain, called Midnight Dome, at Dawson City; Yukon River stern-wheeler at Dawson; Dawson city streets; a car travelling to Hunter Creek to see the old gold rush sites; Bishop Sovereign, Reverend Cathcart and Ellen Sovereign at Dawson City; tobogganing in Dawson City area; buildings in Dawson City; logs hauled across the Yukon River to Dawson; Yukon haze over Dawson City; the Steamer Casca, a stern-wheeler on the Yukon; and shots of a large factory building and boats taken from inside passage of a steamship en route.~On the 22 September 1932, Bishop Sovereign was elected and translated to the larger See of Athabasca, a diocese founded in 1874. The Sovereign family made their home in the district of Peace River of Alberta. Scenes from Peace River, taken between 1932 and 1933, include: a shot of Misery Mountain taken from the Peace River; the Sovereign family coming out the front door of the Sovereign home in Peace River; a plane from Canadian Airways travelling from Peace River to Fort Vermillion with passenger Reverend Singleton, and drapes over the plane's engine to keep the engine warm; a motor trip from Peace River to Banff; and Ellen Sovereign feeding a bear. <56mn>
