Emma Did it Her Way

Emma Kelly lived in Topeka, wrote for a Chicago newspaper, thirsted, as they say, for adventure. In 1897 word came south from the Klondike that men had struck gold, and young Emma decided to head north to Dawson City. She arranged financing, acquired a list of newspapers that would print stories she sent back, and on September 10, 1897 she left Topeka.

Another Lady in the Gold Rush

Emma rode trains to Seattle, a steamship up to Juneau, another steamship up the Lynn Canal to Dyea; arrived way too late in the year. To get into Canada she needed a ton of supplies at the top of Chilkoot Pass and experienced packers wanted no part of helping her so late in the year. Undaunted, Emma hired 10 deckhands from the steamship and bullied them up the pass through a blizzard. “If a little old girl can keep climbing, surely you can.”

At Lake Lindeman she found a party heading up the Yukon. Taking a young girl along didn’t thrill them, but her money did. At the Whitehorse Rapids, they insisted she get out and walk. But Emma did things her way. She found the frigid rapids so much fun that at the end she headed back on foot to do it again. On the way up she slipped on the ice, fell fifteen feet down the cliffside and knocked herself out cold.

No matter. She rode the rapids again, this time wielding an oar. “The wild waves rocked and rolled our boat and occasionally broke over us. The spray rose so thick and high we could not see the shore, the very air seeming a sea of misty spray. It was simply glorious.”

They travelled the Yukon, sleeping in the snow along the river at night. In late September the river could freeze over and lock them in just any day. The men wanted to stop, winter and go on in the spring. Emma would have none of it.

They arrived in Dawson City on November 1 and the next day the river froze solid.  No matter. Emma bought a few bottles of whiskey and, while the crew celebrated on the snow covered riverbank, Emma pulled out her guitar and serenaded them.

Dyea Alaska Today