May Fairclough, nee Van Bibber (1910 - 2011)
May Van Bibber was born at Virginia Falls, NWT to parents Ira and Eliza Jackson Van Bibber who were trapping in the area. May grew up at the Van Bibber homestead at Mica Creek, Pelly Crossing. May went to school for six years in Dawson while living at St. Paul's Anglican Hostel. Summers were spent at Mica Creek and then she and her siblings floated down river on a log raft which they sold in Dawson to pay the hostel boarding fees. After one of May's sisters got TB at the hostel, their father kept all of the children at home.1)
May ran dogs on a trapline and delivered mail between Fort Selkirk and Carmacks. She married George Fairclough and they bought the Pelly Ranch [in 1927] and lived there until 1940. They then ran a trading post at Tummel River before moving to Carmacks and later Merritt Creek. May moved to British Columbia in the 1940s and she lived and worked in various communities before returning to the Yukon in 1968 to live in Carmacks and then Pelly Crossing to look after her mother. She moved to Mayo to run the Silver Inn Cafe and then moved into a house on the Stewart River. 2)
May was an active member of YANSI, helping to organize the Mayo Local and acting as the president and attending executive meetings in Whitehorse. She sat on other boards and committees as well being the representative for the Selkirk First Nation to the Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon. May retired t Mayo.3)