Jack London Found a Different Kind of Klondike Gold
Women as well as men heard the news of gold in the Klondike. If men endured hell to get there, women did too. With husbands or without them, miners or miner miners, women came north in droves.
Some came out of desperation, hoping for money to support themselves or their families. Some came for adventure, to escape boredom and routine. They brought all kinds of skills. Lady miners came. So did businesswomen, journalists, cooks, entertainers, teachers, physicians… even nuns.
The harsh reality of the route to the Klondike turned some women back. It turned men back too. Some women died on the way to the Klondike or on the Klondike. And some women who made it, found themselves in a situation more desperate than the one they left at home.
But Annie Hall Strong, who stopped in Skagway, wrote a column for the Skagway newspaper—“Advice for Women”.
Her friend Harriet Pullen arrived in Skagway flat broke. But she could bake pies. And she could drive a team of horses. Harriet stayed after the Gold Rush; became a Skagway institution.
Mollie Brackett came north with her husband and her father in law. She took photos of life in Skagway during the Gold Rush; documented the dramatic country, immortalized both good guys and bad ones.
Shaaw Tiaa, also known as Kate Carmack, accompanied her husband and his partners to the Klondike where they made the famous strike that started the Gold Rush in the first place.
More men than women rushed for gold, of course. But a lot of incredibly tough, courageous ladies came too.
What a wealth of information ! – I could have used it in 1980 when I drove tour bus for the summer. Weekly trips from Whitehorse to Dawson City to Anchorage (Atlas Tours, first female tour driver) I could have used this site as material for my “spiel”. As it was the stories that I gleaned on the streets and bars seemed sufficient to make my American passengers agog. Of course that was easy in that huge country. I used to tease my passengers from Texas to be nice up here or Alaska will divide itself and you will become the third largest state in the Union. Even in my big shiny tour bus and on mostly paved roads those journeys were pretty arduous with several days of 14 hr. driving. I was the first female bus driver over the Dempster.
The North “seems to hold you lie a spell” and I enjoy many hours of memories from that summer- I can still recite The Cremation of Sam McGee.
Separately, I knew a gentleman named Cam Fleming (Slim) who had worked on the original building of the Alaska Hiway in l941.
I am now long past retirement and have a little chicken farm in Salmon Arm. BC.
What a wonderful and informative comment. You are one of those remarkable people I love to talk about in my stories. If you have stories or photos you would like to share, I would love to turn them into a blog post.
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