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 story “God Had Seeded the North Country with Gold”
A struggling California farmer, Clarence Berry had travelled north before—in 1894. He returned and married Ethel in the fall of 1895 and Ethel readily agreed to go back north with him. On the long, rough road she had occasion to regret it. The long hard trip from Juneau to Clarence’s digs on 40-mile creek took three months.
Clarence worked tending bar at Forty Mile and one night George Carmack stopped in for a drink. When Clarence heard about Carmack’s big strike near Dawson he pulled up stakes and headed that way; filed a claim on Eldorado Creek. Ethel followed later on the steamer Arctic, bringing supplies.
The bride of the Klondike suffered through that first winter in a tiny cabin with no floor and one window covered with a flour sack. But the claim on Eldorado creek proved one of the richest in the Klondike.
Returning to Seattle and then California to deposit their money, the couple rested up a bit then returned to Dawson in 1898.
Most of those who travelled to the Klondike didn’t find gold. Of those who did find gold and left the Klondike wealthy, most found creative ways to lose their money.
Ethel and Clarence invested wisely and became and stayed rich. They took $1.5 million from the Eldorado Creek claim. Moving to Fairbanks they made more money from the Tanana gold rush. Back in Bakersfield, California they invested in oil land.
Link to a website called “wild women of the west.”
This was one smart lady.
Indeed she was.
She was indeed.