Millionaires Trick Beaver Creek Locals In The Yukon To Steal Elders' Vaccine... & It Doesn't Go Well

Covid Chronicles: Don't Mess With The Yukon Territory 

Beaver Creek, in the Yukon Territory, is the closest Canadian community to the Copper River Valley. It's right across the border from Tok, and a four and half hour drive from Glennallen. 

The Yukon Territory border crossing town has a population of only around 100 people. It's a Native community and – as in Native American communities in Alaska – is acutely aware of the unique dangers that COVID-19 poses to local people.

Recently, on January 19th, Rodney Baker and his wife, Ekaterina,  two millionaire Canadians, flew from their home in Vancouver to Whitehorse in the Yukon. Then, instead of self-isolating for 14 days under Whitehorse's mandatory program, they got onto a chartered flight on January 21st and flew to Beaver Creek, on the Alaska border. 

They told people there that they had arrived to work at the motel, and went on over to the mobile vaccination clinic, where they jumped the line and got doses of the Moderna vaccine. Not surprisingly, local people figured out right away that the millionaire couple had not come to lonely Beaver Creek in the middle of winter just for low-income work. They figured it out when Baker and his wife started immediately asking about how to get back to the airport right after the vaccine was administered. 

The White River First Nation was furious. Angela Demit, head of the nation, told the Washington Post: 

"It's clear to me that because we are a predominately indigenous community that they assumed we were naive." 

White River First Nation is asking for jail time. 

Locals were quoted as saying that the couple had to walk back to the Beaver Creek airport because nobody in town would give them a ride.  

The Great Canadian Gaming Corp., which operates 20 casinos, said that as of Sunday Rodney Baker was no longer employed with them as CEO.