Skagway Joe, Main Tour, part 11 - Gold Rush History, part 4

Account of some of the women of the 1897-98 gold rush:

The Salvation Army ladies came up here in the Fall of 1897. And they climbed up the Chilkoot trail, each one of those ladies carrying their own ton of goods. It was a great struggle for them but they finally all did make it all the way to Dawson City.

Now those ladies were not here to mine for gold, they were here to try to save some souls. But those fellas in Dawson were a pretty rough bunch, so I'm not too sure how many souls those ladies were actually able to save. But you have to admire them for having had the strength and the courage to have made the trip.

Now another lady that came up in the fall of 1987 was named Emma Kelly. She was a newspaper reporter for the Kansas City Star. She tried to hire some Tlinket Indians to be her packers to carry her newspaper and photographic equipment over the pass. The Tlinkets often hired themselves out as heavy packers because they were used to carrying heavy loads up and over the pass.

But they refused to work for Emma Kelly because she came very late in the season and they thought the weather was going to turn really bad in the pass. So they didn't want to work for her.

Emma then hired some crew members from one of the ships in town to carry her stuff. The crew members and Emma made it about half way up the pass when the weather turned really bad just like the Tlinket Indians thought it would. So the crew members wanted to quit. But Emma Kelly said to them, "Come on, guys. If you quit on me now, I'm going to have to carry this stuff all by myself.

And she was able to persuade the crew members to continue. And so, with a great struggle they all managed to make it to Lake Bennett.

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