Asked in 2013 how he felt about being named for\u00a0a Yukon Commissioner’s Award, Hank Karr’s response was typically plainspoken, honest and humble.<\/p>\n
“I keep wondering why I’m receiving these awards,” he mused. “But after receiving it, I’m happy that I did receive it.”<\/p>\n
Karr, the country crooner,\u00a0legend\u00a0of\u00a0the territory’s music scene\u00a0and\u00a0author of a beloved\u00a0catalogue of songs celebrating his adopted home in the North,\u00a0died over the\u00a0weekend in Whitehorse. He was 86.<\/p>\n
“He’s an icon. He really is,” said Joe Mewett, president of the Yukon Legion, where Karr played many times over the years.<\/p>\n
“You know, when I first met him, I didn’t really know who he was. But over the years, you kind of find out who the guy is and what he means to the Yukon.”<\/p>\n
Karr first came to the Yukon in the 1960s\u00a0and soon\u00a0made a name for himself performing in local bars,\u00a0singing classic country songs in a rich baritone not unlike one of his own musical heroes, Jim Reeves. Other Karr favourites included Ray Price, Marty Robbins\u00a0and a\u00a0Canadian namesake,\u00a0Hank Snow.<\/p>\n
Karr’s 1967 LP, ‘Stealin’ My World.’ (CBC)<\/p>\n
Karr would stay\u00a0true to those early influences throughout his performing career, singing and writing songs that had little flash about them\u00a0but connected with people simply and directly.<\/p>\n
“Times change, and I think we have to kind of move with the times too. But right now, country music I think is too extravagant for me, and for a lot of people I speak to,” Karr reflected in 2013.<\/p>\n
“The stuff that I do, and\u00a0the\u00a0real country songs, they are like real life experiences. So you can relate. You can relate to some of it, and mostly you can understand the lyrics,” he reflected.<\/p>\n
Karr’s muse and inspiration always seemed to be the territory itself \u2014 its spectacular mountain vistas, wild rivers\u00a0and colourful Gold Rush history. His 1981 LP Paddlewheeler and other Northland Ballads, produced by the CBC Northern Service, is a collection of\u00a0Karr’s versions of songs by the late\u00a0Yukon songwriter Al Oster<\/a>, including\u00a0’98 Trail, Yukon Gold, Buckets of Steel, and\u00a0Yukon Book of Memories.<\/p>\n Karr’s signature song, though, would always be\u00a0After Yukon. The song,\u00a0written by Karr himself,\u00a0pays\u00a0loving tribute to each of Canada’s provinces and territories\u00a0but keeps returning to the head-scratching\u00a0question: “Where do you go after Yukon?” Karr’s answer was simple, and there was no doubting that he meant it: “You’re just\u00a0fooling yourself if you think there’s something\u00a0else, because\u00a0there’s just nothing\u00a0left after Yukon.”<\/p>\n Mewett remembers that song in particular as a mainstay of Karr’s\u00a0live set.<\/p>\n “It’s one of those staples that everybody seems to enjoy. And it’s just \u2014\u00a0it’s Hank,” Mewett said.<\/p>\n Ray Park, another musician who moved the territory in the 1960s, was a longtime friend of Karr’s and the two played dozens of shows together over the years. Park called his friend\u00a0a “great entertainer.”<\/p>\n “When we were on stage, we had fun \u2014 you know, kibbitzing and laughing.\u00a0It was just great,” Park recalled.<\/p>\n “I’m gonna miss him. He was a nice guy, you know, a good friend.”<\/p>\n Musician Ray Park, left, with Yukon Legion president Joe Mewett in Whitehorse. (George Maratos\/CBC)<\/p>\n Karr’s son, Hank Karr Jr., describes how his dad came from a poor upbringing in a small town in Saskatchewan\u00a0and left home at a young age.<\/p>\n “So he knew what lonely was,” said Hank Jr.<\/p>\n Hank Sr.\u00a0would experience his own financial struggles over the years, including an\u00a0an ill-fated business venture in New Brunswick, where\u00a0Hank Jr. says his parents effectively “lost their shirts.”<\/p>\n The Yukon offered his parents the opportunity to build a better life, says Hank Jr. They worked hard, made a lot of friends, focused on raising a family\u00a0and never looked back.<\/p>\n “Once Mom and him plugged in to the Yukon, I think they found home, and an opportunity,” said Hank Jr.<\/p>\n “I just honestly believe that he felt in his heart, he always owed the Yukon for what it did for him.”<\/p>\n Undated photo of the late Yukon singer Hank Karr, who was a Whitehorse city bus driver for decades. (Submitted by Hank Karr Jr.)<\/p>\n Hank Sr. became a regular at the local bars, sometimes playing late into the night before getting up early for his day job\u00a0driving a Whitehorse city bus. He also coached kids’ baseball for many years. As a singer, he’d often perform for free, including his Remembrance Day shows at the Whitehorse Legion.<\/p>\n In his later years, he performed less often but\u00a0could still\u00a0draw an audience. Some of his favourite gigs were at the Yukon Golden Age Society’s monthly dinners, where he described recognizing “99 per cent of the people that I performed for when I was really active in the bars.”<\/p>\n Hank Sr. would receive many honours through his life. Along with the Yukon Commissioner’s Award, he\u00a0received the King Charles III Coronation Medal earlier this year, and in 2019 was given a Heritage Award<\/a> at the Western Canadian Music Awards. He and his wife Pam were also named “Mr. and Mrs. Yukon”<\/a> for the Sourdough Rendezvous festival in 2019.<\/p>\n Being invited to perform at Expo 67 in Montreal in 1967 was always a\u00a0career highlight for his dad, Hank Jr.\u00a0said. But he also said the many achievements and accolades never went to the singer’s\u00a0head.<\/p>\n “One thing he didn’t do was put his trophies on the shelf,” said Hank Jr.<\/p>\n Karr pictured on the sleeve of his 1981 LP of Al Oster songs, ‘Paddlewheeler and other Northern Ballads.’ (CBC)<\/p>\n Carol\u00a0Thomson, with the Golden Age Society of Yukon, is\u00a0a longtime friend and admirer of Hank Sr. She\u00a0remembers how he\u00a0used\u00a0to “kick me out of the bar when I wasn’t old enough.”<\/p>\n Thomson described Hank Sr.\u00a0as the real deal.<\/p>\n “He was Yukon. He knew everybody. He knew our stories,” she said. “He had the humour, he had the love, he was genuine and it didn’t matter who you were, you were Hank’s friend.<\/p>\n “Whether he was that persona on stage, he was the same person when he came to your home and partied with you. He was the same guy.”<\/p>\n Karr entertaining a crowd at Shipyards Park in Whitehorse in 2017. (Dave White\/CBC)<\/p>\n Thomson also recalled how her late\u00a0mother had lost her sight after a stroke and managed to find comfort in simply listening to Karr’s songs.<\/p>\n “She’d listen\u00a0to him day and night, because she had no idea whether it was day or night. And Hank got her through those last years of her life,” Thomson said.<\/p>\n “I loved him dearly and I will miss him dearly, as the rest of the Yukon will.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Asked in 2013 how he felt about being named for\u00a0a Yukon Commissioner’s Award, Hank Karr’s response was typically plainspoken, honest and humble. “I keep wondering why I’m receiving these awards,” he mused. “But after receiving it, I’m happy that I did receive it.” Karr, the country crooner,\u00a0legend\u00a0of\u00a0the territory’s music scene\u00a0and\u00a0author of a beloved\u00a0catalogue of songs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1995785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[361632,361633,361635,361637,361636,342522,361639,339852,361638,361634],"class_list":["post-1995784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-hank-jr","tag-hank-karr","tag-hank-snow","tag-hank-sr","tag-karr","tag-ray-park","tag-the-yukon","tag-whitehorse","tag-yukon-commissioner","tag-yukon-gold"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Remembering-Hank-Karr-Yukons-beloved-balladeer.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1995784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1995785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
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