Crossing Borderlines
September 18, 2009
Skagway, Alaska
American non-fiction writers have worked hard to discover the true stories of named children throughout their history. One of my favourite books is Children of the Gold Rush by Claire Rudolf Murphy and Jane G. Haigh. Hundreds of writers on both sides of the border have produced fiction, non-fiction and poetry about the Klondike gold rush of 1898 for adults and children alike. This award-winning book is the only one I’ve found that documents the courage of named children with photographs and careful biographical research.
One of the challenges of my own similar work in the Yukon and Northwest Territories is to step back from the Klondike gold rush – a story that continues to define the territory, too narrowly I think – so that I can find less familiar tales of the children who lived before and after the overwhelming rush of humanity to this territory at the turn of the last century.
Even so I would like to include a few stories about the brave kids who climbed the Chilkoot Trail, step after slippery step, to reach the goldfields with their parents—and about the Tlingit, Tutchone and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in children who watched them arrive.
Right now I am searching for more information about the younger years of Graphie Gracie Carmack, the young daughter of Shaaw Tláa [known in English as Kate Carmack] and her husband George Carmack, the couple that discovered gold with relatives Tagish Charlie and Skookum Jim near Dawson City. Was the little girl with them on the discovery day?
I am also hunting for details about Little Margie Newman, proclaimed Princess of the Klondike, a child performer who sang and danced for the prospectors in Dawson City at the age of nine.
Many Canadian families travelled to the Klondike through the port at Skagway, Alaska. I’m here today to learn more about them at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Looking forward to Dawson City . . .
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