Kate Rockwell found a special way to make a fortune in the Klondike. A gorgeous, red-haired chorus girl from New York, Kate heard about the Klondike in 1899, three years after the famous gold strike. She headed north, determined to become the “Belle of the Yukon”. Link to another story “The Bride of the Klondike” …
Tag Archives: Gold Rush
The Richest Woman in the Klondike
The Richest woman in the Klondike? Magazine and newspaper writers created the legend of Belinda Mulrooney because they loved to write about her. Belinda explained that nothing much happened in Dawson to write about and they needed copy. Link to another story “The Bride of the Klondike” When Belinda, as a child, immigrated from Ireland. …
The Bride of the Klondike
The bride of the Klondike, Ethel Berry arrived in Seattle from Alaska in July 1897. She wore ragged men’s clothing but she had $100,000 in her bedroll. News of the gold Ethel and her husband Clarence had brought back from the Klondike helped set off the great Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. Link to another …
Nellie Hadn’t Finished
Nellie, the Angel of Cassiar, had just got started. Her path through life, one long adventure, would wind up taking her to the Klondike Gold Rush and then on to the Gold fields of Northern Alaska Angel of Cassiar. When Cassiar mining petered out, Nellie headed south to try out the Silver fields of Arizona. …
Angel of Cassiar
Angel of Cassiar they called her. A remote gold mining district in northern British Columbia, Cassiar attracted a party of 200 prospectors up from Nevada to try their luck. Nellie Cashman came with them, opened a boarding house, and set about prospecting just like the men. Strikes, Gold Strikes, in the Far North Unlike …
Five Things Define Carcross
Five things define the tiny town of Carcross in Yukon Territory, a train depot, an empty but famous hotel, Matthew Watson’s Store, the world’s smallest desert, and, most important, a full-time population of 512 people—people with attitude. Tourists flock to the tiny downtown and provide life blood to Carcross’s economy. When you join them do …
Skookum Jim, Kate Carmack’s Brother
Skookum in Tagish means enormously strong, and the young man named Keish earned the new name Skookum Jim, hauling hundred-pound packs up the infamous trail over Chilkoot Pass. In 1892, near Dyea at the foot of the Chilkoot trail he killed a bear with his bare hands. Skookum packed supplies up the rugged Chilkoot with …
First Woman of the Klondike
The first woman of the Klondike struck gold in the Klondike, but still lived the saddest life on record. Born Shaaw Tiaa, native Tagish, she married a Tlingit man and bore him a daughter. A flu epidemic killed them both. When Shaaw Tiaa’s sister passed away she married the widower, a white man named George …
Buffalo Soldiers in Skagway
Buffalo Soldiers from the 24th Infantry Regiment came to Skagway in 1899, forty-four years before the black soldiers of the 93rd came there to build the Alaska Highway. The Klondike Gold Rush had brought hordes of gold rushers who threatened the community and each other. The Army sent Company L of the 24th Infantry to …
Glacier, the Valdez Glacier
Women Came to the Klondike Too The Valdez Glacier looked easy, and in 1897 and 1898 when promoters invited gold rushers to take “The All American Route” to the Klondike, they had yet to learn that hustlers offering helpful advice were just about the only people making money from the Klondike Gold Rush. They …