Backhouse, Frances (With Introduction by Pierre Berton). Women of the Klondike
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Document generated on 09/24/2021 8:02 p.m. Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine Backhouse, Frances (with introduction by Pierre Berton). Women of the Klondike. Vancouver: Whitecap, 1995. Pp. xi, 211. Black and white photographs. Maps. $16.95 paper. ISBN 1-55110-375-3 Charlene Porsild Volume 24, Number 2, March 1996 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016606ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1016606ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine ISSN 0703-0428 (print) 1918-5138 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Porsild, C. (1996). Review of [Backhouse, Frances (with introduction by Pierre Berton). Women of the Klondike. Vancouver: Whitecap, 1995. Pp. xi, 211. Black and white photographs. Maps. $16.95 paper. ISBN 1-55110-375-3]. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 24(2), 65–66. https://doi.org/10.7202/1016606ar All Rights Reserved © Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 1996 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Book Reviews / Comptes rendus and operated urban services repre• Organized in a roughly chronological for• in Dawson City and surrounds. Unfortu• sented an important alternative to the mat, Backhouse takes us from the cities nately for the reader, Backhouse rarely bonusing of private enterprise through and farms of southern Canada and the provides transitions that might link these cash grants, loan guarantees and tax ex• United States to the gold fields, saloons, individual women, and this makes her emptions. Moreover, municipal enter• and mining cabins of the Klondike. Here narrative rather choppy and segmented. prise enjoyed near unanimous support we find one of the best overviews of the While this technique makes the book from all social classes in the two cities. routes men and women stampeders trav• easy to put down and pick up, on the Yet, Tronrud overlooks this important leg• elled to the Klondike. Readers looking for other hand it prevents the reader from acy of boosterism at the Lakehead. Aban• a clear synopsis and description of the gaining a sense of the larger story of doned industrial plants, huge debts, hazards and glories of the 'golden trail' women's contributions to Klondike society. corrupt officials and the ruined dream of would do well to begin here. Back• being the "Chicago of the North" are pa• house's descriptions are excellent, well By the end of Women of the Klondike, I raded before the reader instead. written, and concise; her maps are un• wondered how these individual women's complicated and easy-to-read. stories fit together. Did any of these peo• Despite these shortcomings, Tronrud's ple know one another or were they all exploration of the mechanics of boosting Photographs are an important feature of separate, temporary sojourners in a city techniques is an important addition to the narrative histories. Most of the photo• that knew no neighbourliness? How did existing literature. Its impact, however, graphs in this book are familiar ones to these women perceive themselves and would have been greater if Tronrud had archival researchers and the majority of each other? We see a couple of middle- considered municipal enterprise. This is the originals are clear, well-composed, class women commenting on dance hall an unfortunate oversight, as the and well-preserved. Yet in the review employees, and we see a number of Lakehead provides an excellent example copy at least, a number of the photos are women choosing husbands from the of how a philosophy of growth contrib• poorly reproduced and appear fuzzy, local population. We do not, however, uted to municipal innovation and commu• streaky, and grainy (the photo of Mary have a sense of the city of Dawson as it nity empowerment. Rothweiler's Magnet Hotel on p. 72 and developed, or of the social networks or in• that of the women in a Klondike kitchen teractions that might have mediated Steven High on p. 44 are good examples). This is a people's ability to meet one another so• Department of History shame, since a number of these photo• cially and to select mates. We are left University of Ottawa graphs have not been previously pub• with the impression that each woman lished and deserve much better made her way "alone among thirty-thou• presentation. sand men" as the author describes Fran• Backhouse, Frances (with introduction by ces Dorley (p. 63), rather than as Pierre Berton). Women of the Klondike. The greatest value in this work is that we members of a developing community of Vancouver: Whitecap, 1995. Pp. xi, 211. hear these Klondike women in their own men, women, and families. Black and white photographs. Maps. voices. Backhouse provides us with an $16.95 paper. ISBN 1-55110-375-3. excellent selection of quotations from Gender historians will wonder how this women's diaries, published memoirs, book differs from Melanie Mayer's With the centennial of the Klondike Gold and newspaper reports. This gives the Women of the Klondike published in Rush approaching in 1998, northern en• book its most marketable quality: north• 1989. The answer is that it is not alto• thusiasts will welcome the long-overdue ern flavour. There is much here for read• gether different. In fact, the two books attention writers are giving Yukon history. ers who enjoy lively, personal stories. have much in common, telling a number Pierre Berton, in the foreword to Women of the same stories and employing a sim• of the Klondike, describes it as a "new Women of the Klondike is a series of an• ilar format, yet curiously Backhouse does spin on a familiar tale." In many ways it is ecdotes forming what almost amounts to not cite Mayer or list her book in the bibli• exactly that. Like much Yukon history, a short biographical dictionary. Sepa• ography. this is a lively narrative chronicling the rated by line breaks in the text, the au• contributions of a variety of women who thor presents brief biographies, That the author has not interpreted these participated in the Klondike Gold Rush accompanied by lengthy quotations by women's stories or tried to fit them to• from 1896-1904. and about individual women who resided gether will frustrate urban historians look- 65 Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXIV, No. 2 (March, 1996 mars) Book Reviews / Comptes rendus ing for a sense of the growth and devel• though, with the exception of Catholics at and situations that occurred within the opment of Dawson City. At the same the Gathering Place, these works are writ• town of York are described in terms of time, the author's silence on these points ten for a general, non-academic audi• the complexity of political and familial re• allows us to see and hear the women in ence. Insofar as there is a single theme lationships in Upper Canada. We learn their own words and with little interfer• common to these five books, it is that To• next to nothing about the way the town's ence. We have to draw our own conclu• ronto has always been composed of a development and its burgeoning political sions, of course, so the value of this work number of different communities, each of hegemony in Upper Canada shaped will depend on the ability of individual which has shared its physical space, if broader social developments. The as• readers to make sense of the wealth of not always its cultural space. Indeed, sumption is that they did not. This book biographical information and to make any attempt to conjure up a monocultural would be most useful for a view of elite their own connections. identity for the city and its inhabitants is political culture in Upper Canada in the only likely to succeed either at a very sim• mid to late 1820s, but it has very limited Charlene Porsild, Department of History plistic or abstract level, one far removed use for an urban historian, despite its en• Simon Fraser University from the many perceptible communities gaging style with "...all the elements of a and phenomena portrayed even in these classic detective novel..." as York func• works. For purposes of comparison, the tions as merely the stage upon which the Raible, Chris. Muddy York Mud: Scandal best written history of Toronto appears in drama surrounding the Types Riot un• & Scurrility in Upper Canada. Creemore, two books in the History of Canadian Cit• folds.2 As urban history, it is the city as Ontario: Curiosity House, 1992. Pp. xii, ies Series sponsored by the History Divi• backdrop. That is, the general view is not 289. Black and White Photographs, sion of the Canadian Museum of linked to the local, however important the Select Bibliography, Index. Paper. Civilization: Toronto to 1918: An local view might have been. Illustrated History, by J.M.S. Careless Filey, Mike & Victor Russell. From Horse and Toronto Since 1918 by James Mike Filey and Victor Russell have 1 Power to Horsepower: Toronto Lemon. These two books are the stan• pooled their talents to produce From 1890-1930. Toronto: Dundurn Press, dard against which other histories of To• Horse Power to Horsepower- Toronto: 1993. Pp. 112. Black and White ronto produced for the general public 1890-1930, an offering in the Toronto Photographs.