Ellen Davignon was born in Dawson in 1937 to Danish
immigrants who mined and trapped in the Sixtymile area. The family moved to an abandoned US Army camp at Johnson's crossing in 1948 where they built the Johnson's Crossing Lodge. Ellen and her late husband Phil took over the operation in the mid sixties and ran it for many years, raising five children in the business.
From 1994 to 2003 she also wrote a regular column, "Lives of Quiet Desperation," for the Yukon News.