Yukon Tartan
- Name of Tartan:
- Yukon
- ITI Number:
- 2129
- Category:
- Canadian District
- Designer / Source:
- Couture, Mrs Janet
- Date:
- 1965
- Copyright:
- CIDD: 026-08-29132
- Slog:
- BBR:BYB
- Colour Sequence:
- BBRWGYBYBYB
- Thread Count:
- LB80 P16 R16 WW16 LG16 Y16 LB16 Y4 LB8 Y4 LB80
- Notes:
-
The original asymmetric tartan at #1907 was designed by Mrs. Janet Couture in 1965 and adopted by the Yukon Territorial Legislature as the official tartan in 1984. That tartan was illustrated in the Smith & Teale ‘District Tartans’ book and a woven swatch from Fraser & Kirkbright is in the STA’s archives. The tartan was recorded in the Lyon Court books (Edinburgh, 24th October 1984) with two pivots as if it were a symmetrical one – one assumes that that was an error. A Yukon Tartan Act was passed by the Yukon Legislature on November 29, 1984 and the tartan was adopted as the Yukon State Tartan.
By September 2002 however, the design was changed by simply mirroring it and a second Tartan Act was implemented.
Yukon Government site notes read "The Yukon tartan is a recent and non-traditional addition to the world’s official tartans. The woven cloth is composed of stripes of green, dark blue, magenta, yellow and white in varying widths on a light blue background.
The crystalline blue background represents the Yukon sky while the green symbolizes the territory’s forests. White is used to symbolize snow, and yellow to reflect the Yukon’s gold. Magenta is the colour of fireweed, the Yukon’s floral emblem, and dark blue represents the mountains.
The Yukon tartan was designed by Janet Couture of Watson Lake in 1965 and was first proposed as the official territorial tartan during the 1967 Canadian centennial celebrations. However, it was rejected by both the Yukon legislature and the official Scottish tartan registry at the time. It was not approved by either until 1984. Members of the 1967 Territorial Council rejected the tartan because they were concerned about the legal implications of a private individual holding the copyright for the design. The tartan registry rejected the design because it was, in fact, a plaid and did not meet official tartan specifications. In a plaid, the stripes are woven in a repeating sequence, while in a tartan the stripe sequence is reversed – a definition that has long been discarded. .
