When we learn
about the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98, the names we usually hear are male –
those Klondike “kings” who struck it rich. But many women also caught the “gold
fever” that ignited the frenzied stampede northward in search of treasure, a fever
that spread quickly thanks to an economic depression. They came from all walks
of life, some with husbands but many alone. Their reasons for venturing into
the unknown were as varied as those of the men, ranging from desperation for
money to feed themselves and their families to a desire for adventure.
About 1500 women
crossed over the White Pass or the Chilkoot Trail in their quest to reach
Dawson City and the Klondike River region. Here are four of them.
Mollie Walsh Bartlett
Mollie Walsh
left her home in Butte, Montana to join the Klondike Gold Rush in the fall of
1897. On the boat north, she met a Presbyterian preacher who began building a
church upon his arrival in Skagway. Mollie raised money and helped build the
structure, then became active in the congregation.
In March 1898,
Mollie bought restaurant supplies and had them packed up the White Pass Trail
to Log Cabin, in Canadian territory. There she set up a successful grub tent
and roadhouse, where she served freight packers and gold stampeders. She became
known as the “Angel of White Pass Trail.” Many men became enamored with Mollie,
and she had her share of suitors.
She moved to
Dawson in June, opened a restaurant and became involved with Mike Bartlett, a
pack train driver with a drinking problem. They were married in December. The
next summer, she left the Klondike with enough money to make a home in Seattle,
Washington, with her newborn son. Her husband went to seek gold in Nome,
Alaska.
When Mike joined
her in Seattle, their marriage deteriorated and she left him. In 1902, Mike
shot her in the back outside her home. He was acquitted of the murder charge by
reason of insanity and sentenced to an asylum. The court called it a
"crime of passion," as they often did in those times. After his
release he hung himself, leaving their two-year-old son orphaned.
Kate Rockwell
Kathleen Eloise
Rockwell lived in New York City working as a chorus girl and performing in
vaudeville houses. She moved to Spokane, Washington, following a job
opportunity with a variety theater where she lived on dance and drink tips.
When Kate heard of the Klondike Gold Rush, she and a friend immediately left
for the Yukon.
After arriving in
Skagway in 1899, she continued northward, with stops at Lake Bennett,
Whitehorse and other settlements along the way where she tap-danced to support
herself. In Dawson, she was offered a job with the Savoy Theatrical Company,
the largest theater troupe in the Klondike. Her risqué “Flame Dance” was very popular,
and she earned as much as $750 a night performing for newly rich, but lonely,
miners. She became known as “Klondike Kate, the Belle of the Yukon.”
Kate amassed a significant fortune.
Working with her lover, Alexander Pantages, she sold bottles of watered-down
champagne to inebriated miners, thus adding to her riches. Dawson’s prosperity
began to wane in 1902, and Pantages convinced Kate to leave for the West Coast
of the U.S. There he used much of her money to buy theaters in the Pacific Northwest
and persuaded her to take her show on the road to earn more money to support
his pursuit. She returned from one such tour to find he had married another
woman.
To support herself, she again took her
act on tour, performing in saloons and theaters up and down the West
Coast. This life took its toll on her
and she retired from the stage, nearly broke. She traded her house in Seattle
for a homestead claim of 320 acres near Brothers, Oregon. She stayed at her
claim for the requisite seven years, making improvements to the land and
outbuildings then sold the land and moved to Bend, where she built a lodging
house.
She had a short-lived marriage to a cowboy followed by a happier one that lasted thirteen years to a miner who died in Alaska. Two years later, in 1948, she married again—this time to a longtime friend and accountant Bill Van Duren. They retired to Sweet Home, Oregon, where Rockwell died in her sleep in 1957 at age 84.
Lucille Hunter
In 1897,
nineteen-year-old Lucille Hunter left Michigan with her husband, Charles, for the
Klondike. They were among the few African Americans who joined the gold rush. After leaving with a group of stampeders from
Wrangell, Alaska, they followed the Stikine River through the coastal range and
then overland to Dawson. This was considered one of the most difficult routes
to the gold fields.
Lucille was
pregnant at the time. She and Charles stopped at Teslin Lake, where she gave
birth to a daughter. The indigenous Tagish community apparently had not seen
black people before and were at a loss for what to call them. They referred to
the Hunters as “just another kind of white person.”
Most of the
others in their group stayed at Teslin Lake for the winter, but the Hunters
decided to go on alone by dogsled over hundreds of miles of snow in temperatures
that dipped as low as 60 degrees below zero. They and their infant daughter
arrived in Dawson just after Christmas in 1897, well ahead of most of the
stampeders. This allowed them to stake three claims along Bonanza Creek, where
they lived in primitive conditions, digging gold and raising their daughter.
A few years
later, Charles also staked some silver claims near Mayo. The couple mined gold and
silver until his death in 1939. Lucille continued to operate the mining claims
and raised her grandson, since her daughter had died earlier. When construction
began on the Alaska Highway in 1942, Lucille and her grandson moved to
Whitehorse. She set up a laundry business and her grandson made the deliveries
around town.
In later years, she lost her sight but kept up with current events by listening to her radio. She died in 1972 at age 93.
Martha Black
Martha Purdy and her
husband Will left Chicago and their wealthy society life for the Klondike in
1898. Her brother George accompanied them, but they left their sons with
Martha’s mother in Kansas. When they reached Seattle, Will was called on
business to San Francisco. While there
he changed his mind and suggested they go to Hawaii instead. Her biography,
My Ninety Years, states: "I
wrote to Will that I had made up my mind to go to the Klondyke (sic) as
originally planned, that I would never go back to him, so undependable he had
proven, that I never wanted to hear from or see him again. He went his way. I
went mine."
Martha persuaded
her brother to accompany her on the trip north. They arrived in Skagway in July
and joined a party that set out on the Chilkoot trail. A fashionable woman, she
found her clothes ill-suited for the climb. "As the day advanced the trail
became steeper, the air warmer, and footholds without support impossible. I
shed my sealskin jacket. I cursed my hot, high buckram collar, my tight heavily
boned corsets, my long corduroy skirt, my full bloomers, which I had to hitch
up with every step."
As she was
traversing the trail, Martha discovered she was pregnant. The party stopped at
Excelsior Creek, where she and George staked placer claims, which they planned
to work the following spring, then went on to Dawson. Single and pregnant, she
was shunned by Dawson society. The town was overrun with stampeders and there
were few accommodations available. George rented a cabin across the Klondike
River, in a less reputable area near the brothels. She gave birth to a son in
the tiny cabin.
While she was
still in Dawson, her father arrived and convinced his reluctant daughter to
return home with him on the condition that she would return if her claim, left
in George’s care, panned out $10,000 worth of gold or more. In June 1900, she
received word that her claims had surpassed that level of production. She
returned to Dawson, where she established and managed a successful sawmill and
mining camp financed by her family. This and her original claim made her
financially independent and she was finally welcomed into the local social
scene. In 1904, her divorce from Will was finalized and she married Dawson City
lawyer George Black.
George became Commissioner of the Yukon in
1912 and later served four terms in the Canadian Parliament. When he resigned
for health reasons, Martha ran in his place in the 1935 election and won. At
age 69, she became the second female Member of Parliament to serve in the House
of Commons. She was known as the First Lady of the Yukon.
“What I wanted was not shelter and safety, but liberty and opportunity,” she wrote in her autobiography. On October 31, 1957, Martha died in Whitehorse at the age of 94.
***
I often include real-life historical figures in my novels. Although I didn’t include any of these women specifically, they and several other women of the Klondike provided the inspiration for Katie, Millie and Grace in The Claim. Intrepid female trailblazers of our past, like Mollie, Kate, Lucille and Martha, paved the way for the courageous female leaders of our present and our future.
