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In one of history’s little-known ironies, the Maple Leaf country pushing back against Donald Trump’s annexation bid is also host to a tiny, remote restaurant and brothel that helped launch the U.S. president’s family fortune more than 100 years ago.
To find it, look west. Way west.
On a quiet, remote trail in British Columbia near the Yukon boundary sits a wooden facade resembling the brothel and restaurant Trump’s grandfather built at the turn of the century.
Friedrich Trump called his business in Bennett, a town that sprang up because of the Klondike Gold Rush, the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel.
Parks Canada says the replica at the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site was constructed in 2017, and the kitchen inside is now exclusively used by government workers.
“The exterior design … was influenced by (the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel), because it is representative of numerous false-fronted buildings that existed at Bennett,” Parks Canada spokesperson Megan Hope said in an email.
The elder Trump, a German immigrant, cooked and served food inside the Arctic to Americans and Canadians heading to goldfields in the Yukon. He made enough cash to sow the seeds for the future Trump empire.
A 90-year-old Yukoner who wrote a booklet about men who became wealthy off the gold rush, including Friedrich Trump, says the replica should remind President Trump to show gratitude to Canada rather than launching a trade war and annexation bid against it.
“(Donald Trump) got the darndest history,” Pat Ellis, author of the “Financial Sourdough Starter Stories,” said in an interview from Whitehorse.
“Americans made their stink here (and) went back to the States with their money.
“Now he has a fantasy of taking over Canada. That’s gratitude, eh?” she said with a laugh.
The story of Friedrich Trump’s chapter in Canada begins in the 1880s.
The 16-year-old barber’s apprentice, whose father died young, moved to New York City from Germany to be closer to his sister.
He then moved to Seattle and began operating an eatery until a July 1897 newspaper headline caught his eye: “Gold! Gold! Gold!”
Friedrich Trump sold the eatery and headed north with thousands of other Americans and Canadians. He headed toward the Yukon River but landed just short of it, in B.C.
He and a business partner erected a canteen on the route and called it the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel. Their specialty was roadkill.
Within three years, he relocated the business with the same facade to Whitehorse, where the hotel became famous.
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