It was retired from commercial service in 1951 due to the extension and improvement of the Klondike Highway in the years after World War II.

Following its withdrawal from service the Keno was laid up at the BYN Co. shipyard in Whitehorse, before being selected for preservation and donated by the company to the Canadian Government in 1959.

From the middle of the 19th century it also formed a major transport link for white trappers, traders and mineral prospectors operating in the region, but its shallow, sinuous and fast flowing nature made navigation difficult.

[2] As trading and mining activities in Yukon and Alaska grew, bigger and better sternwheelers were built to cope with the increasing traffic on the main river channel.

However, in order to connect to many mining camps and trading posts vessels were required to negotiate the still shallower and more tortuous channels of the Yukon's tributaries.

Uppermost was the smaller, punningly titled 'Texas' deck, carrying larger staterooms for the captain, senior crew and first class passengers.

Each year these could change position dramatically during the spring thaw when the river was high with meltwater; throughout the remainder of the season they kept moving, albeit more slowly.

[7] She was retired in 1951 after completion, extension and improvement of the Klondike Highway made road transport the cheapest and preferred method for moving goods and people around the territory.

The Keno was laid up on the ways at the shipyard in Whitehorse, on the banks of the Yukon River, where she was joined by many of the surviving sternwheeler fleet a few years later after the BYN Co. ceased paddle steamer operations completely in 1955.

Her intended pilot for the final voyage, Emil Forrest, was assisting with the process but suffered a fatal heart attack during the course of the day.

[11] The most significant of the preparations made to the ship before its departure from Whitehorse were modifications to her superstructure to allow her to pass under the newly constructed highway bridge at Carmacks.

Erected since the cessation of steamer traffic on the river this bridge had not been designed to permit vessels as tall as Keno, let alone her larger fleetmates, to pass beneath.

[11] With her hydraulic tiller installed in the observation room on the saloon deck, Pilot Slim manoeuvred the Keno under the bridge with her bow facing upstream (the better to control the downstream progress of the ship in the fast flowing river) with only 11 in (28 cm) to spare.

[6] From Carmacks her voyage down the Yukon River was relatively uneventful – she successfully negotiated both the Five Finger and Rink rapids – until she ran aground on an uncharted bar near Minto.

[11] Three days after leaving Whitehorse the Keno arrived in Dawson City, becoming the last of Yukon's sternwheeler fleet to navigate the river under her own power.

The HSMBC spent much of the following two years completing refurbishment and restoration work on the vessel, before the Keno was officially declared a National Historic Site on 1 July, Dominion Day, 1962, during the opening ceremonies for the Dawson Festival.