Trump's empire roots: The Arctic Hotel beginnings
In the north of Canada, in Bennett, there is the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel building, where, at the end of the 19th century, the ancestor of American President-elect Donald Trump began to earn money. The building housed a restaurant and hotel and provided rooms for parties.
7:12 PM EST, November 9, 2024
On an archival 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 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 the English 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!" — reminded the public broadcaster CBC. Trump sold everything he had and moved to where the gold seekers were.
An emigrant 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 Indians, which for many years was an important town during the Klondike Gold Rush. This story was described by Columbia University journalism professor Gwenda Blair, author of "The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire."
As she told the public broadcaster CBC after Trump's first victory in 2016, it was that business, including profits from courtesan activity, that allowed the Trump family to accumulate capital for further investments. According to experts of the era, enabling courtesans to conduct their activities by restaurant or hotel owners was common in mining towns in the early 20th century.
"The best-equipped place"
The Huffington Post Canada portal quoted an advertisement from the local newspaper "Bennett Sun," in which the "Arctic Restaurant" advertised 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 described that men could pay hired women with gold found, which could be weighed in the room before the "service." Meanwhile, "respectable women" were informed that they should not 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 quoted in April 1900 by the Yukon Sun.
Canadian magazine Maclean's wrote that six weeks after opening the hotel in Bennett, Friedrich Trump was already looking for another business location: Whitehorse.
However, after a few years of the gold rush, the Canadian police wanted to ban courtesans and limit gambling and alcohol sales. Trump's grandfather realized the situation before the gold rush ended, left for Germany with, in today's money, over half a million US dollars and married Elizabeth Christ there.
However, in Germany, he was treated as a deserter who, during the time he should have served in the military, went to America and adopted American citizenship. As CBC recalled, Frederick Trump was deported from Germany; his wife was then pregnant, and the couple moved to New York, where they had three children. At that time, Trump began buying real estate on the West Coast of the USA.
The "Arctic Restaurant" building still exists and is maintained by Parks Canada, the agency managing Canada's national parks.
