I Married The Klondike

First published in 1954, this is a true story of love and adventure which traces the history of Dawson City through the eyes of a young schoolteacher from Canada and the penniless Yukon miner she married... “This is a brave book. It is a record of a woman’s courage and devotion in a hostile land. It is the story of a refined and sensitive girl who found happiness the hard way, and triumphed over conditions that would have driven most women to distraction. It is also a tribute to a husband who with hand, heart and head was outstanding in a world of worthy men. “I have read many books on the Yukon, but this is different...It is the gallant personality of the author which shines on every page, and makes her chronicle a saga of the High North.” (Robert W. Service, Preface)

From Shakespeare to cop shows, sitcoms to docudramas, for over three decades the CBC has presented viewers with every variety of television drama and has become Canada's closest equivalent to a national theatre. Turn Up the Contrast is the first book to explore the content of Canadian television drama and is both a critical analysis and a survey history of how Canadians have used the medium to tell themselves their own stories. As a part of her research, Mary Jane Miller watched thousands of hours of television, sampling series and viewing in their entirety shorter programs such as movies and mini-series. Asking a variety of questions, she selected a number of programs for detailed analysis, and devotees of The Beachcombers, King of Kensington, Seeing Things, Cariboo Country, Wojeck or A Gift to Last will be pleased to find their favourites among those discussed at length. A University of British Columbia Press / CBC Enterprises Co-Publication.

Autobiography of a Toronto kindergarten teacher who went to Dawson in 1907.

She may have been holding a gun, or an axe, or her hiked-up skirts, but she was there, in the Klondike of the Gold Rush. And her decision to venture everything on the dream of northern gold was in every way bolder and riskier than any man’s. In Frontier Spirit, Jennifer Duncan celebrates the lives of women who, in defiance of traditional expectations, left their homes, their families, and their professions, to make the arduous journey through a punishing climate and unfamiliar wilderness to seek their fortunes in the Klondike. The story of women in the Klondike begins with the strong and knowledgeable women who were there before the race for riches began -- First Nations women like Shaaw Tláa, whose experience and traditional skills were critical to the survival of her white prospector husband, and ultimately, to the discovery that sparked the Gold Rush. The white women who joined the Klondike Stampede came from all walks of life: rich and poor, educated and illiterate, single and married. Wealthy socialite Martha Black left her world of comfort to pursue a career as a miner, mill manager, and politician on the northern frontier. Belinda Mulrooney, an Irish farm girl, arrived in Dawson with a quarter to her name but used her business acumen and canny resourcefulness to turn the shantytown into a city and herself into its richest woman. And then there’s Kate Rockwell, a working-class girl from Kansas City, whose thirst for fame and adulation led her over the treacherous waters of the Whitehorse rapids and fired her ascent to the title of Queen of the Klondike. Duncan has spent the last five years experiencing Dawson City in all its seasons and, like the women who came before her, she has fallen under the spell of the North, coming to love its wilderness, its challenges, and its rugged glory. With remarkable empathy, imagination and personal insight, Duncan creates an engrossing portrait of the splendour of the Yukon, breathing life into the stories of the daring and diverse women of the Klondike and the grandeur of the adventurers who gambled everything to find their fortunes there.

With the first headlines that screamed "Gold! Gold! Gold!" the rush to the Klondike quickly became the stuff of legend. It was the Wild West all over again, the cowboy hero recast as prospector. Four key figures are linked to the gold that set off the stampede: George Carmack, his Tagish wife Kate Carmack (born Shaaw Tlaa), her brother Skookum Jim, and their nephew Dawson Charlie. Of these, Kate has received the least recognition, even though she played a pivotal role in the events that led to the Klondike stampede. In this recovery of a key historical figure, Vanasse explores the early life of Kate, the years she spent with George before the Klondike discovery, her meeting of almost every key figure in gold rush history, and the experiences in Washington and California that brought her into a world she could scarcely have imagined. Four years after he set off the rush, Carmack abandoned his wife at a California ranch. Illiterate and thousands of miles from her home, Kate fought for her wealth, her family, and her reputation. Through a fortuitous combination of correspondence, legal proceedings, ethnographic study, and the generosity of Kate's Tagish-Tlingit relatives, the story of Kate Carmack can finally be told. The first popular rendering of the Klondike Gold Rush from the perspective of those who were there first-, her biography gives voice to a survivor who, against all odds, ultimately reclaimed her true wealth. Vanasse brings a novelist's skill to a multifaceted and deeply researched story. Here is a complex portrait of an important historical figure overshadowed by the rush to Klondike gold.

The first ever biography of one of Canada’s best-known and most colourful personalities by an award-winning author. From his northern childhood on, it was clear that Pierre Berton (1920—2004) was different from his peers. Over the course of his eighty-four years, he would become the most famous Canadian media figure of his time, in newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and books — sometimes all at once. Berton dominated bookstore shelves for almost half a century, winning Governor General’s Awards for Klondike and The Last Spike, among many others, along with a dozen honorary degrees. Throughout it all, Berton was larger than life: full of verve and ideas, he approached everything he did with passion, humour, and an insatiable curiosity. He loved controversy and being the centre of attention, and provoked national debate on subjects as wide-ranging as religion and marijuana use. A major voice of Canadian nationalism at the dawn of globalization, he made Canadians take interest in their own history and become proud of it. But he had his critics too, and some considered him egocentric and mean-spirited. Now, with the same meticulous research and storytelling skill that earned him wide critical acclaim for The Spinster and the Prophet, Brian McKillop traces Pierre Berton’s remarkable life, with special emphasis on his early days and his rise to prominence. The result is a comprehensive, vivid portrait of the life and work of one of our most celebrated national figures.