The gold rush in the 1890s and the discovery of oil in 1920 prompted the Canadian government to negotiate treaties 8 and 11 with the Dene and Gwich’in. With the arrival of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, these treaties formalized colonial control over the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Medicine, hospitals, and healthcare were promised as part of treaty negotiations, but the infrastructure of care erected in this period was underfunded and racially contingent, prioritizing settlers and sojourners. Sanitary infrastructure appeared as a necessary response to the surge of newcomers in search of gold in the Yukon. Otherwise, healthcare for Indigenous northerners was designed around the objectives of the Christian missions upon whom the government depended to deliver its treaty promises.