Editing Yukon (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Yukon}}
[[File:Klondike mining, c.1899.jpg|thumb|Hill-side mining during the [[Klondike Gold Rush]], {{circa|1899}}]]
Long before the arrival of Europeans, the central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, and the area escaped [[Glacier|glaciation]]. Sites of [[Archaeology|archeological]] significance in the Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human habitation in North America.<ref name="tc.gov.yk.ca">Services, Cultural. Archaeology Program. Department of Tourism and Culture. [Online] March 8, 2011. [Cited: April 7, 2012.] [http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/archaeology.html]</ref> The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon.<ref name="tc.gov.yk.ca" />

The [[volcano|volcanic]] eruption of [[Mount Churchill]] in approximately 800 AD in what is now the U.S. state of Alaska blanketed the southern Yukon with a layer of [[Volcanic ash|ash]] which can still be seen along the [[Klondike Highway]], and which forms part of the oral tradition of First Nations peoples in the Yukon and further south in Canada.

Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks. European incursions into the area began early in the 19th century with the [[fur trade]], followed by [[Missionary|missionaries]]. By the 1870s and 1880s, gold miners began to arrive. This drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the [[Klondike Gold Rush]] in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold rush led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories and the formation of the separate Yukon Territory in 1898.