page_title: Klondike Gold Rush
section_title: Role of women
hierarchical_section_title: Klondike Gold Rush / Life in the Klondike / Role of women
caption_attribution_description: English: Actresses en route to the Klondike
context_page_description: The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in artifacts, films, games, literature, and photographs.
  To reach the gold fields, most prospectors took the route through the ports of Dyea and Skagway, in Southeast Alaska. Here, the "Klondikers" could follow either the Chilkoot or the White Pass trails to the Yukon River, and sail down to the Klondike. The Canadian authorities required each of them to bring a year's supply of food, in order to prevent starvation. In all, the Klondikers' equipment weighed close to a ton, which most carried themselves, in stages. Performing this task, and contending with the mountainous terrain and cold climate, meant those who persisted did not arrive until summer 1898. Once there, they found few opportunities, and many left disappointed.
context_section_description: In 1898 eight percent of those living in the Klondike territory were women, and in towns like Dawson this rose to 12 percent. Many women arrived with their husbands or families, but others travelled alone. Most came to the Klondike for similar economic and social reasons as male prospectors, but they attracted particular media interest. The gender imbalance in the Klondike encouraged business proposals to ship young, single women into the region to marry newly wealthy miners; few, if any, of these marriages ever took place, but some single women appear to have travelled on their own in the hope of finding prosperous husbands. Guidebooks gave recommendations for what practical clothes women should take to the Klondike: the female dress code of the time was formal, emphasising  long skirts and corsets, but most women adapted this for the conditions of the trails. Regardless of experience, women in a party were typically expected to cook for the group. Few mothers brought their children with them due to the risks of the travel.
  Once in the Klondike, very few women—less than one percent—actually worked as miners. Many were married to miners; however, their lives as partners on the gold fields were still hard and often lonely. They had extensive domestic duties, including thawing ice and snow for water, breaking up frozen food, chopping wood and collecting wild foods. In Dawson and other towns, some women took in laundry to make money. This was a physically demanding job, but could be relatively easily combined with child care duties. Others took jobs in the service industry, for example as waitresses or seamstresses, which could pay well, but were often punctuated by periods of unemployment. Both men and women opened roadhouses, but women were considered to be better at running them. A few women worked in the packing trade, carrying goods on their backs, or became domestic servants.
  Wealthier women with capital might invest in mines and other businesses. One of the most prominent businesswomen in the Klondike, was Belinda Mulrooney. She brought a consignment of cloth and hot water bottles with her when she arrived in the Klondike in early 1897 and with the proceeds of those sales she first built a roadhouse at Grand Forks and later a grand hotel in Dawson. She invested widely, including acquiring her own mining company, and was reputed to be the richest woman of the Klondike. The wealthy Martha Black was abandoned by her husband early in the journey to the Klondike, but continued on without him, reaching Dawson City where she became a prominent citizen, investing in various mining and business ventures with her brother.
  A relatively small number of women worked in the entertainment and sex industries. The elite of these women were the highly paid actresses and courtesans of Dawson; beneath them were chorus line dancers, who usually doubled as hostesses, and other dance hall workers. While still better paid than white-collar male workers, these women worked very long hours and had significant expenses. The entertainment industry merged into the sex industry, where women made a living as prostitutes. The sex industry in the Klondike was concentrated on Klondike City and in a backstreet area of Dawson. A hierarchy of sexual employment existed, with brothels and parlour  houses at the top, small independent "cigar shops" in the middle, and, at the bottom, the prostitutes who worked out of small huts called "hutches". Life for these workers was a continual struggle and the suicide rate was high.
  The degree of involvement between Native women and the stampeders varied. Many Tlingit women worked as packers for the prospectors, for example, carrying supplies and equipment, sometimes also transporting their babies as well. Hän women had relatively little contact with the white immigrants, however, and there was a significant social divide between local Hän women and white women. Although before 1897 there had been a number of Native women who married western men, including Kate Carmack, the Tagish wife of one of the discoverers, this
caption: Actresses travelling to Dawson, 1898
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