Canada has played a pivotal role in the fate of the Trump family. According to Gwenda Blair, a Columbia University professor and author of Donald Trump, it began during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898 The Trumps: Three Generations Building an Empire.
Frederick Trump came to America from Bavaria in 1885 at the age of 16. After living in New York he moved to Seattle on the Pacific Coast where he opened a small restaurant which he sold in 1897 to take a ship to Alaska from where he joined the Yukon to support the Klondike Gold Rush exploit. Thousands of prospectors hoped to make fortunes there, like those who participated in the California Gold Rush (1848-1856), which had attracted 300,000 prospectors, Americans and foreigners.
Donald Trump’s Grandfather’s Hotel, 1899. Royal BC Museum and Archives
The Klondike Rush began with the arrival of some prospectors with large amounts of gold in Seattle and San Francisco in 1896. Newspaper reports on the subject caused mass hysteria. People are giving up their jobs for the Klondike. It is estimated that about 100,000 sailed out of West Coast ports, but only 30,000 to 40,000 arrived in the gold districts. About 4,000 of them actually found gold there.
grandfather’s rush for wealth
Instead of prospecting for gold, Fred Trump wanted to offer services to those who were looking for it. During his three-year residency in Canada, he opened his Arctic Restaurant and Hotel, first on Lake Bennett in northern British Columbia, then in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Prostitutes in the Yukon, 1900. Photo Wikimedia Commons/Public domain
The two-story building quickly gained a reputation as a place to find food, alcohol, gambling, and sex. Her newspaper ads refer to prostitution and mention women with scales so customers can weigh gold nuggets to pay for their services. A journalist for the Yukon Sun wrote: “For single men, the Arctic is an excellent place. But I wouldn’t recommend serious women to go there because they might hear disgusting things that might pervert them.
Donald defends his grandfather
During the gold rush, most hotels offered sex services. But can Fred Trump be called a pimp? He rented rooms to prostitutes who drew their income from his clients. So he profited from prostitution. He advertised it in newspaper ads for his hotel.
At the G-7 summit in Charlevoix in 2018, Justin Trudeau presented Donald Trump—apparently with a grin—with a framed photo of his grandfather’s hotel in the Yukon.
Trudeau presents Trump with a photo of his grandfather’s hotel. Photo taken by Twitter/X @PressSec45
Trump, who previously called Justin Trudeau a “two-faced person,” has dismissed reports that his grandfather ran brothels as “completely untrue.”
With Parks Canada, the Carcross Tagish Native Band is turning the ghost town of Bennett City into a tourist attraction. A top notch “camping experience” with a replica Arctic Restaurant & Hotel in the heart of the village. It is hoped that Fred Trump’s “brothel” will attract tourists. According to Nature Tours Yukon, the aim isn’t to replicate the hotel as is, just a scaled-down model of the building inspired by that of the gold rush.
The “scale model” of Fred Trump’s Arctic Hotel. Facebook screenshot
Fred Trump’s legacy to his descendants
In 1901, the RCMP decided to outlaw prostitution and restrict gambling and alcohol in the Yukon, where gold was now scarce. Frederick Trump sells his hotel and returns to Germany with a considerable sum of money and marries.
Frederick Trump and his wife Elizabeth, 1902. Photo Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
He is believed to have fled to the United States – where he acquired American citizenship – to avoid military service and was expelled from his country of origin. He returns to New York with his pregnant wife from Donald’s father. He died of Spanish flu in 1918 at the age of 49, leaving a considerable fortune which his son used to build a real estate empire. His grandson Donald, who inherited it, met his first wife, Ivana, a model, during the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but that’s another story.