Gold Rush: The Untold Story of the First Nation's woman who started the Klondike Gold Rush by Flora Delargy

The Yukon Territory is located in northwest Canada and is known for its beautiful wilderness, with glaciers and rugged mountains. The summers are short, the winters long and dark. Cutting through the Territory is the Yukon River, its name taken from the Gwich'in word 'Yu-ku-ah", which means great river. Gold can be found in its riverbed. When this was discovered, it started the Klondike Gold Rush.

The land that makes up the Yukon Territories is the ancestral home to fourteen First Nations which are organized into two clans: the Wolf and the Crow clans. A Wolf can only marry a member of the Crow clan and vice versa. The First Nation peoples lived a life hunting and gathering. They comprised eight language groups including Gwich'in, Han, Kaska, Upper Tanana, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Tagish and Tlingit. 

In the summer of 1896, Shaaw Tlaa, a young woman from the First Nation Tagish and Tlingit peoples, was travelling with her husband. Her name meant "Older than Old".  Shaaw Tlaa, also called Kate, was married to George Carmack, a white American prospector. As a member of the Tagish Wolf clan, Kate knew and respected the land. She knew which plants could be eaten and which were used for their medicinal properties. Along with her brother Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) and her nephew Kaa Goox (Dawson Charlie), Kate and her husband were searching for gold. Some say Kate found gold, other stories are that Keish did. Whoever was the first, the claim was registered in George Carmack's name.

News of a gold strike at Bonanza Creek spread rapidly throughout the Yukon Territory. Soon prospectors flooded the area, working to extract good from the creek. In 1897, gold fever soon struck throughout the world, as some returned to places like San Francisco and Seattle, very rich. 

Discussion

Gold Rush offers a fascinating account of the Klondike Gold Rush from the perspective of the women who were involved. Although the story starts off with the discovery of gold possibly by an Indigenous woman, it is also a story of women entrepreneurs, miners, and business owners. Delargy profiles four amazing women in Gold Rush.

Martha Black ran a sawmill and quartz mill on the Yukon River. Belinda Mulrooney was an entrepreneur who opened a store and a restaurant in Dawson as well as a very grand hotel, called the Fairview. Nellie Cashman, was an experienced prospector well before the gold discovery at Bonanza. She set out on an expedition to the Klondike. To fund her mining claims, Nellie ran a series of boarding houses in Dawson. She had a mine that yielded one hundred thousand dollars in gold! A huge fortune at that time. There was Bessie Couture who owned two restaurants in Skagway, Alaska. Each of these women did not accept that claim that the gold trail was "No Place For Women". Instead, they proved they were more than equal to the task of life on the trail. Just how incredible the accomplishments of these women were, is demonstrated by the fact that "...Of the 100,000 stampeders who set out for the gold fields, around 70,000 either turned back or perished." 

Gold Rush also offers a portrait of life in the Far North during the Gold Rush. Delargy outlines the considerable supplies miners and stampeders required to survive on the trail. The various routes to the gold fields are shown on a map, including the White Pass Trail and the most famous, the Chilkoot Trail. The latter had been used as a trade route for hundreds of years by the Tlingit people. With it's fifteen hundred steps at a thirty-five degree incline, it was a major obstacle to be overcome by stampeders.

Delargy describes how miners extracted the gold nuggets from the river sediment and rocks, using the sluice box system. To reach gold found deeper, mine shafts were constructed. The Klondike Gold Rush lasted until 1899 when gold was found in Nome, Alaska. Gold Rush also explains the effects the gold rush had on the First Nations of the Yukon, the destruction of their ancestral fishing and hunting grounds, the loss of their culture, and the exposure to new diseases.

Although the title of this book is the "Untold Story of the First Nation's Woman Who Started the Klondike Gold Rush", in fact it is mostly about other women involved in the gold rush. Kate Carmack's life, despite the gold find, was not one of ease. Her marriage broke up, she lost custody of her daughter, Graphie, and returned to the Yukon to find her Tagish village gone. 

Gold Rush is an informative, engaging book on the Klondike Gold Rush, the story richly enhanced by the author's ink and watercolour illustrations.

Book Details:

Gold Rush: The Untold Story of the First Nation's Woman Who Started the Klondike Gold Rush by Flora Delargy

Beverly, MA:  Wide Eyed Publications      2024

75 pp.