Klondike Big Inch
Free land
In the early 1950s, the Quaker Oats breakfast food company was the sponsor of the popular radio drama Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. To bolster popularity of the show, Quaker came up with the Klondike Big Inch (KBI) giveaway.
Quaker purchased land near Dawson City, Yukon, a location that would resonate with listeners of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and transferred the land to the Klondike Big Inch Land Co. Inc. that they incorporated for the purpose. They subdivided the land into one-inch squares and created a fee simple title to each square (each "tract") on a "deed of land" certificate that they gave away for free starting in 1955. At first, consumers of Quaker cereal had to send away box tops to obtain certificates. For legal and logistical reasons, Quaker quickly moved to the simple expedient of putting a certificate in every box of cereal.
The scheme was wildly popular and 21 million certificates were soon in the hands of appreciative breakfast food consumers. By design or oversight, Quaker didn't continue paying taxes on the land and it passed into the hands of the Government of Canada in 1965. Quaker folded up the KBI Land Company in 1966.
Many of the 21 million certificates are still around. You can find them on eBay. The Yukon Land Titles Office receives queries from people who have come into possession of certificates believing that they actually own land in Yukon. Ah, that they should be so lucky!
Where was it?
The KBI certificates all mention Lot 243 Group 2 shown on survey plan 6718 and containing 19.11 acres. A search of the NRCan survey plans for Yukon quickly turns up field book FB6718. This is the 1903 survey of lots 242 (34.16 acres) and 243 (19.11 acres) in Group 2. The survey took place long before Quaker's 1954 purchase of the lot for apparently $1000.
Here are the field book and the survey plan in PDF format.
Lot 243 Group 2 is located just west of the current Dawson City Golf Course. Zoom out and pan around on this interactive map to see the location relative to Dawson City on the other side of the Yukon River.
Lot 243 Group 2 is 640 feet (7680 inches) by 1301 feet (15,612 inches). That's 119,900,160 square inches in area. So, the area purchased by Quaker for the KBI certificates had the potential for almost 120 million one-inch-square numbered tracts.
The certificate for each tract is numbered with one letter (A-Z) and up to six digits (1-999,999). This gives the potential for about 26 million different tract numbers. But there are approximately 120 million possible one-inch tracts in Lot 243. What about the other 94 million? Did Quaker issue (at most) only 26 million certificates?
Most reports indicate that (only) 21 million certificates were printed; maybe five letters from the alphabet were excluded. Was there some other numbering scheme that covered all 120 million square inches of lot 243?
A bit more digging turned up photos of other KBI certificates with a more-elaborate numbering scheme: still six digits but with three letters. Maybe there are actually more than 21 million KBI certificates. Additional research required.
Was this legal?
When Quaker considered the scheme, their biggest concern was whether they would have to survey and register each individual square inch. Someone estimated that if they did so, the survey plan with each numbered portion of Lot 243 would have to be bigger than Lot 243 itself just to fit the millions of numbers involved. Registering each one would have cost a fortune.
Quaker consulted Whitehorse lawyer (later Yukon senator) Clifford Van Roggen, who was the law partner of Erik Nielsen (later Yukon MP and deputy prime minister in whose honour the Whitehorse International Airport is named). Van Roggen advised that Quaker would not have to register each tract. So, Quaker purchased Lot 243 and went ahead with the KBI giveaway.
[more to follow]
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