Harriet Pullen, one of the ladies who joined a flood of men in their rush for Klondike gold, found her fame and fortune in Skagway, Alaska. She had no need to go on to the Klondike.
“I only had seven dollars to my name. I didn’t know a soul in Alaska. I had no place to go. So I stood on the beach in the rain, while tented Skagway of 1897 shouted, cursed, and surged about me.”
Link to another story “Fascinating Skagway”
Captain William Moore needed a cook and Harriet could cook. He hired her. She made and sold apple pies on the side, turned that into a surprisingly successful enterprise, so much so that she brought horses up from Washington and began hauling freight over the infamous White Pass, “The Dead Horse Trail.”
Harriet had three children and her businesses earned enough to provide for her family. More important, when the White Pass and Yukon Railroad bypassed and closed the freight lines, Harriet had enough money put by to purchase a large home from Captain Moore and convert it to a luxurious hotel. Tourists flowed into town during the summer making Harriet’s hotel a success and making her a legend— “Ma Pullen.”
She bought a farm in nearby Dyea and from there she brought fresh vegetables and milk and cream to the hotel kitchen. And her apple pies remained a staple on the menu.
And the after-dinner entertainment? You guessed it—Ma Pullen plumbing her memory for stories of the famous Gold Rush days.
Harriet, in 1909 visited her mother near Port Angeles, Washington. Headed home in January she boarded the Gertrude which left port in a raging snowstorm. The ship nailed some very large rocks and stuck fast. Boarding a lifeboat, Harriet made it to shore but a huge wave upended the boat as she stepped ashore, upending it and sending her deep into the water. She swam to the surface where a small whaling vessel pulled her aboard.
Harriett ran the Pullen house when the soldiers of the United States Army poured through Skagway on their way to build the Alaska Highway. Many of them remembered her and her hotel with affection.
Harriet died in 1947.