Donald Trump's roots: Wealth built in the Canadian north
In northern Canada, in Bennett, stands the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel building, where, at the end of the 19th century, the ancestor of American President-elect Donald Trump began to generate his wealth. The building housed a restaurant and hotel and offered rooms for parties.
On an archived Facebook page - "The Trump White House Archived," there is a photo from June 9, 2018, taken during the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Canada, by White House official photographer Shealah Craighead. The photo shows Trump sitting next to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, holding a photo of the "Arctic Restaurant and Hotel" given to him by Trudeau. Another picture of the building can be found in Alberta's provincial archives, showing three adjacent buildings with signs: "Grand Hotel," "White Horse Hotel," and "Arctic Restaurant."
This business marked the beginning of the Trump's wealth
Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, left Germany in 1885, at the age of 16, then a barber apprentice, and sailed to New York. After a few years, he changed his name to Frederick and moved to Seattle. There, he earned money for restaurant equipment, opened a diner, and was inspired by the front page of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" newspaper, which, on July 17, 1897, featured the headline "Gold! Gold! Gold!" - as reported by the public broadcaster CBC. Trump sold everything he had and moved to where the gold seekers were.
An immigrant from Germany and his partner Ernest Levin opened the "Arctic Restaurant and Hotel" at the end of the 19th century, in Bennett, British Columbia, in the territory of the Tlingit people, a significant town during the Klondike Gold Rush. This story was documented by Columbia University journalism professor Gwenda Blair, author of "The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire."
As she told the CBC after Trump's first victory in 2016, it was that business, including profits from women's services, that allowed the Trump family to accumulate capital for further investments, according to experts of the era, restaurant or hotel owners commonly allowed prostitutes to conduct their activities in mining towns in the early 20th century.
"The best-equipped place"
The Huffington Post Canada quoted an advertisement from the local newspaper "Bennett Sun," where the "Arctic Restaurant" described itself as the "best-equipped place" in Bennett, with "every delicacy in the market," including "oysters in every style" and "elegantly furnished private boxes for ladies and parties."
Blair noted that men could pay prostitutes with gold they found, which could be weighed in the room before the "service." Meanwhile, "respectable women" were advised not to stay in this hotel because they were "liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings and uttered, too, by the depraved of their own sex," as described in April 1900 by the quoted Blair newspaper "Yukon Sun."
Canadian magazine "Maclean's" reported that six weeks after opening the hotel in Bennett, Friedrich Trump was already seeking another business location in Whitehorse.
However, after a few years of the gold rush, Canadian police attempted to ban prostitution and limit gambling and alcohol sales. Trump's grandfather anticipated the changing situation before the gold rush ended, returned to Germany with, in today's money, over CAD 700,000, and married Elizabeth Christ there.
In Germany, however, he was treated as a deserter who, during his mandatory military service, emigrated to America and adopted American citizenship. As the CBC recalled, Frederick Trump was deported from Germany. His wife was pregnant at the time, and the couple moved to New York, where they had three children. It was then that Trump began purchasing real estate on the West Coast of the USA.
The "Arctic Restaurant" building still exists and is maintained by Parks Canada.
