Violent crime was a rarity in the Klondike during the Gold Rush. That, along with the mystery surrounding them, made the Christmas Day Murders one of the biggest news stories to come out of the Klondike.
The mystery began early Christmas morning, 1899, when three men left the roadhouse at Minto, heading upriver. Lawrence "Ole" Olson, a telegraph lineman at Five Fingers, was going only a few miles to have Christmas dinner with a mountie friend at Hootchikoo. Lynn Relfe, a Dawson bartender, was heading for Seattle to visit his family. Fred Clayson, pushing his broken bicycle, was returning to Skagway where he and his brother ran a business. They were never seen alive again.
