Murray visited musical archives, read through reems of yellowed sheet music and trolled through gold rush-era diaries and letters to find out what the prospectors and others were singing in the camps. Tracking down sheet music led her to old-timers, libraries across the country and private collections. Her hefty spiral songbook contains more than 100 pieces, which are meant to be opened up on a piano and enjoyed. The sheet music includes original compositions from amateurs and from professionals, some of whom had never set foot in Alaska or the Yukon. Others, like Stephen Foster songs, were popular at the time.
Several works parody well-known songs.
In a far away Alaska where the Yukon river flows, Where the mighty boulders stand mid wealth and might. With fortune there untold in a grave that's decked with gold, He is sleeping in the Klondike vale tonight. Murray, a pianist who lives in Anderson, includes historical tidbits about the composers or the performers who sang them. Quoting from diaries and letters, she makes a good case for the importance and pervasiveness of music in the gold camps. That's the scene described by reporters who joined the Klondike gold rush.