Kate and William signed a virtual visitor book with a Morse code tweet today using a nifty piece of technology created by Whitehorse Yukon’s IT guru Seamus Bernasse and operated by the 90-year-old former Commissioner of Yukon and legendary WWII radio operator, Doug Bell.
Doug tapped out the message and Kate and William together pressed down the lever to send the tweet from the tiny historic Telegraph Office on Front Street in Downtown Whitehorse transmitting – THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 2016, WHITEHORSE YUKON – around the world in seconds. They then proceeded to sign the traditional visitor’s book with old school pen on paper.
Kate greets her young fans.
The Queen and Prince Philip were the first Royal visitors to this office, part of the tiny city’s MacBride Museum, in 1959 and a picture of Her Majesty coming out of the same door as the Duke and Duchess today, hangs in the museum. As Commissioner from 1980-1986, the Queen’s representative in Yukon, Doug met the Queen and also memorably Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1982 in Ottawa, Canada’s capital. He has never forgotten it, Doug told The Weekly.
“I thought this is the kinda gal you can really relate to,” he says of Diana. “I said to Prince Charles you’ve gotta come up to Yukon and he promised he would.” Doug told the Duke. “It seems pretty much everyone has met my family here,” William joked.
Kate and William look at local art as they tour the Main Street Party.
True to his word Prince Charles made a date soon after and set plans in place but then suddenly it was all called off. “Princess Diana was pregnant so they had to cancel the visit,” says Doug. “Wow, that must have been me, or Harry,” said William.
Kate looked warm and stylish in a Carolina Herrera red coat with burgundy heels as she arrived in Downtown Whitehorse. As they approached the MacBride Museum the Duke and Duchess were greeted by local scouts and guides including Talitha Horoscoe, 15, who actually spoke to Kate. “She asked me how long I had been a girl guide. She was lovely, polite and very nice,” Talitha tells The Weekly.
Kate looked warm and stylish in a Carolina Herrera red coat with burgundy heels.
Local fans trying to catch a glimpse of the royals.
Inside the couple were given a brief history of Whitehorse and the Yukon area by Keith Halliday, Chair of the Museum Board and Patricia Cunning, the Museum Director. One of the exhibits the couple saw was the cape of another famous Kate – Aboriginal woman Kate Carmack who became a millionaire as the first woman to discover gold in Yukon when it came literally rushing down the mountain as nuggets and dust in the Yukon River.
They also saw a room full of stuffed animals from the Yukon including the black bear which lives in the hills around the city of Whitehorse. From here the couple were entertained by a group of three and four-year-olds in a story time session in the local native language, Southern Tutchone. The children and elders read Nán’į Yè Uka Nànnta – Hide and Peek, much to the delight of Kate and William.
The royal couple then undertook a walkabout through the streets of Whitehorse, which was packed with thousands of cheering and flag-waving well-wishers. Emmie Campbell, four, gave Kate a picture she had drawn of herself with the royal. “She asked me if that was me and her and seemed to really like it,’ she said. Maddison Mills, eight, described Kate as being “very pretty”. “She seemed really worried that we had got cold waiting out for long to see them,” she said.
The Duke and Duchess sit as stories are read to children at McBride Museum.
William shook hands with Lee Somerton, a long-standing Whitehorse resident, and told her: “You have the coldest hands of anyone I have met here.”
“It was worth it!” she exclaimed, making William laugh.
Bruce Habberfield, 70, told William how his father, Gordon, drove for his great-grandfather, King George VI, when he came to Calgary. And the Duchess took it in her stride when Charlene Silverfox, 43, grabbed her hands and started kissing them repeatedly. “Thank you for coming to see us. I know it’s so cold. We really appreciate it,” said Kate.
VIDEO: Kate dazzles in red Preen dress on Canada tour
