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Gold Rush in the Klondike: A Woman’s Journey in 1898–1899
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About Gold Rush In The Klondike: A Woman’s Journey In
Product Description When Josephine Knowles left for the Klondike gold fields with her husband in 1898, she didn’t know she would be facing a constant battle with cold, disease, malnutrition, and the ever-present possibility of death. With quiet determination, she resolved to survive, to endure each fresh hardship without complaint, and to be of service to the community around her. “Gold Rush in the Klondike” is Knowles’s true story of her year in the Yukon territory, a revealing, never-before-published personal memoir of day-to-day life at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Written in a clear, forthright, nineteenth-century style, “Gold Rush in the Klondike” presents terrifying struggles against a hostile environment, picturesque descriptions of an untouched Arctic wilderness, and Knowles’s keen observations of men and women on the frontier. A Victorian gentlewoman of refinement, Knowles found herself among swearing, whoring, sometimes violent miners, whom she won over with her grit and compassion. Deciding to never moralize or condemn, Knowles writes frankly of the intense hardships that drove miners into lives of drink and dissipation and the frontier women who were forced to make stark choices between prostitution and starvation. Knowles’s adventures include encounters with author Jack London (Knowles firmly disapproved of London’s cruel mistreatment of his sled dogs), nursing miners during a typhoid outbreak until she fell ill herself, witnessing savage fights among the miners, dangerous travel through the mountain passes and river rapids of the Yukon, and a daring surreptitious visit to a gambling saloon. Amid all hardships, Knowles formed warm relationships with the mining community, for, as she put it, “All the diseases and other troubles had knitted us into one large family.” Illustrated with period photographs, “Gold Rush in the Klondike” is an invaluable historical document of a lost time and place and an admirable portrait of one woman’s determination in the face of danger. Review "Fascinating little memoir ... not only does Knowles relate the woes and hardships of surviving in the Klondike, she does a splendid job of detailing the trip itself and the fellow travelers she and her husband meet along the way. Knowles brings an enlightening perspective to the vexing expedition to Canada's far north." ―David Fox, The Anchorage Press "Brings to life not just a bygone era, but the sentiments and daily experiences and dangers of the Gold Rush world. Women's history and general American history collections alike, especially those strong in Gold Rush experience, will find hers a rare, important addition." ― California Bookwatch "An inherently fascinating and consistently compelling memoir ... enthusiastically and unreservedly recommended for community and academic library 19th Century American History and American Biography collections." ―Helen Dumont, MBR Bookwatch About the Author Josephine Knowles was born in Buffalo Prairie, Illinois, in 1864. She lived in Nebraska, Selma, California, and Oakland, California before her extraordinary year in the Klondike in 1898. She returned to San Francisco in the spring of 1899 and spent the rest of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was the grandmother of noted psychologist Muriel James, who edited Knowles’ manuscript and wrote the foreword. Knowles died in Berkeley, California, in 1936, at the age of 71.
