President Donald Trump isn’t the only Trump who looked at Canada and saw opportunity.
Since his late November meeting with outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago, Trump has incredulously pitched that Canada should become the U.S.’s 51st state.
His grandfather, the German immigrant Friedrich Trump, was drawn north during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1800s, which saw droves of men travel into the Canadian and Alaskan wilderness to get rich.
In 1885, a 16-year-old Friedrich Trump made it to the shores of the United States, landing in New York – where his son and grandson would later make their mark – but bought a railroad ticket west to Washington state.
Friedrich first headed to the mining town of Monte Cristo, Washington – before heading north into Canada.
According to the documentary, Biography: The Trump Dynasty, Friedrich claimed he had found silver on a parcel of land, before he even picked up a shovel.
His plan was never to mine the land – but to build a hotel and restaurant instead.
Once gold was discovered in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 1897, Friedrich headed there.
Friedrich Trump (left) the German immigrant grandfather of President Donald Trump (right) also looked to Canada for opportunity. He owned hotels and restaurants in the U.S.’s neighbor to the north during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1800s
Friedrich bears a striking resemblance to Trump’s youngest son Barron
Friedrich Trump’s first Canadian endeavor was the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel in Bennett, British Columbia. It was considered the mining town’s ‘best restaurant’ but ‘respectable women’ were warned away due it being a place where ‘the depraved of their own sex’ visited
The industrious Trump patriarch continued to serve the miners’ needs during the treacherous journey on the White Pass trail, which winds through Alaska and onto Canada.
The trail was known as a horse killer, where more than 3,000 animals died, with many of their bones still remaining in an area named the ‘Dead Horse Gulch,’ according to the U.S. National Park Service.
Like a modern pop-up restaurant, Friedrich opened tent restaurants along the way.
And he would use those dead horses to make burgers and steaks.
Friedrich made it to Bennett, a town where all the miners had to pass through. It’s now a ghost town in Canada’s British Columbia.
In Bennett, Friedrich opened the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel.
It was considered the ‘best restaurant in Bennett’ though a story in the Yukon Sun also advised that ‘respectable women’ should stay away, as they are ‘liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings and uttered, too, by the depraved of their own sex.’
This account – suggesting prostitutes frequented the establishment – is how Friedrich has been described as a ‘brothel owner.’
As a young Friedrich Trump made his way through the White Pass trail, he used meat from the plethora of dead horses (pictured) to make burgers and steaks in pop-up tent restaurants along the way
Friedrich Trump’s Arctic Restaurant & Hotel is seen in the summer of 1900 floating down the Yukon River to Whitehorse, which is now the capital of Canada’s northwest Yukon territory. It was in place by the time the railroad being constructed made it to the town
Another photo from 1900 shows Friedrich Trump’s Whitehorse Hotel and Arctic Restaurant in its second location, on the main drag of Whitehorse, which is now the capital of Canada’s Yukon Territory
Bennett’s demise started when a planned railroad line wouldn’t stop through it.
That had Friedrich, literally, picking up and moving his business to the town of Whitehorse, now the capital of Canada’s northwest Yukon territory.
Friedrich put the building on a raft during the summer of 1900 and floated it down the Yukon River.
It becomes the Whitehorse Hotel and Arctic Restaurant – and Friedrich quickly amassed a small fortune.
In a 2014 interview from Trump Tower featured in the Biography documentary, the future president is heard marveling over his grandfather’s business acumen.
‘And he must have led a wild life, cause you can imagine,’ Trump said. ‘He owned one little hotel. And he’s move the hotel. He’d take it down and float it on a barge and move it to a better area.’
‘But he did well. And he was a great guy, from what I hear. He must have been terrific,’ the future president added.
Trump never got to meet Friedrich, who died during a Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 at just 49 years old.
A modern-day photo of the sign at the Arctic Restaurant shop in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. The shop is located in the same place where Freidrich Trump’s hotel and restaurant stood after he floated it down the Yukon River
Friedrich’s Canadian roots were highlighted Wednesday in a CTV News op-ed written by retired New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair.
Mulcair’s great-grandfather Paul-Émile Mercier, was hired by Chief Engineer of the Dominion of Canada Jean-Charles Taché, his great great-grandfather, as Mercier married Taché’s daughter, to build that railroad that helped enrich Friedrich once he moved his business to Whitehorse.
‘Call it the Canadian butterfly effect, eh, but my own family story is intertwined with that of a now very wealthy Frederick Trump eventually making his way back to the United States and…providing the world with Donald,’ Mulcair wrote.
‘And for that, I’m sincerely sorry.’
