Article July 12, 1900 Issue

A Woman in Alaska

Her Life in a Cabin in the Klondike Region.

Emma L. Kelly

Boston Transcript

It is a strange, wild life, that of a woman in an Alaskan mining camp. There are no conventionalities of civilized life, no drawing-room receptions, no enforced hypocrisy growing out of the courtesies of civilization. Here the rough miner is just what he appears—plain, rugged, and honest, with a chivalry and respect for woman unknown to a more refined civilization.

The mines of the Birch Creek district are not being worked as generally as they were a few years ago. The camp is not so extensive, the present number of miners on the creek not exceeding possibly one hundred, the camp having dwindled from four or five hundred engaged here a few years ago to this number, by reason of the new discoveries in various sections that have attracted those who had the less desirable class of claims. Then, too, the grounds on this creek have been pretty well worked, though there are a number of very rich mines that will yield handsome profits for years to come.

With my female companion, having reached Dawson in June, we came on to this camp, where we have been most of the time since, having made our home in a snug little cabin where we have been comfortable during the coldest weather, indicated by the mercury for a short time at eighty-two degrees below zero and standing for several days at sixty. My companion and myself each have a claim in this district, I having won mine at the end of a contest, as two miners attempted to take it from me. The matter was settled by submitting our claims respectively to a jury consisting of all the miners in the district. I took charge of my own case and was given a verdict by a majority vote, having been sustained by all except seven of those voting.

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