Text and image(s) from Canadian City Flags,
Raven 18 (2011),
courtesy of the North American Vexillological Association, which
retains copyright. Image(s) by permission of Eugene Ipavec.
The flag of the Village of Carmacks has a white field with its logo
in the centre. The logo is dominated by a naturalistic representation of a
mountain in white and dark green under a semicircle formed by a blue line
with a narrower blue line inside. It is flanked on each side of the semicircle
by naturalistic sprigs of fireweed flower in pink. Curved above the mountain
within the semicircle is CARMACKS in serif letters in dark blue. At the
base is a white ribbon edged with a double border of blue, inscribed YUKON
in white serif letters outlined and shaded in dark blue. Jim Croft, Canadian City Flags,
Raven 18,
2011
The logo in the centre of the flag depicts Tantalus Butte, one
of the most famous natural landmarks in the area. The Northern Tutchone
people, who lived for thousands of years in this area, called it Gun Tthi, meaning
“worm hill”. They believed a giant worm with eyes like the sun lived in
the hill, and if they made too much noise while travelling on the nearby Yukon
River, the worm would blow a big wind which would upset their boats. In
1883, U.S. Army explorer Lt. Frederick Schwatka named the hill “Tantalus
Butte” (after the son of Zeus, who was punished by being forced to stand in
water that receded when he tried to drink it). Schwatka gave the butte this name as he was frustrated when traveling in the Carmacks area by the many
bends in the Yukon River (expecting to reach the hill, the river would take him
away again and again). In 1883, during the Klondike Gold Rush, the prospector
George Washington Carmack, for whom the village is named, found
and developed a seam of coal at Tantalus Butte, locally called “Coal Mine
Hill”. Coal became an important economic resource to the community, as it
supplied the fuel for the paddleboats plying the nearby rivers. Carmack built
a cabin and a trading post here, and soon “Carmack’s Landing” became a
riverboat stop at the confluence of the Yukon and Nordenskiold Rivers. The
fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium), a hardy pinkish, purplish flower, is one
of the first plants to bloom after a fire. The fireweed was adopted as the territorial
flower in 1957 and it symbolizes Carmacks as a Yukon community. Jim Croft, Canadian City Flags,
Raven 18,
2011
![[Carmacks, Yukon Territory]](../images/c/ca-ytcar-l.gif)
1:2 image by
Eugene Ipavec