This is a very interesting history of the women who made the Alaskan winters more tolerable. Some were nice, some were not so nice, others were admired by the men they used for profit and often helped. And many were used in their turn. Many died young, killed themselves, died in poverty or wealth or just disappeared from history. Others were the great-grandmothers of today's prominent Alaskan families.
The author gives a very detailed history, with numerous photographs, of the men and women who braved the wrath of the arctic winters in their search to become rich. It was only after I was part-way through the book I understood why they endured what they endured. Much of the gold rush occurred in the 1890s. I remembered that the Bank Panic of 1893 devastated the economy of the entire world, plunging people into such dire straights they would have welcomed the recessions we've gone through in recent decades. It's why many flocked to Alaska and western Canada to get rich or die trying.
Parts of this book are explicit, some parts are very explicit. So don't read it if you are prudish. Still you meet a lot of interesting characters, and sometimes learn how their actions sometimes made history.
For example, there is "Dirty Maude" Delisle, a circus performer from Ohio. She danced at the Palace in Dawson, where she was known as the only woman in the Far North who could stand flat-footed and spit over her head. Obviously, something every young woman wishes she could do.
I never knew that from 1870 to 1874, the city of St. Louis openly operated a red light district with over 700 prostitutes and provided police protection for both management and clients. The city even offered free medical inspections, and hospitalizations for prostitutes with venereal diseases. Had this not become a political football---socialized medicine???---this program might have become a national model. Just imagine what American life might be today. As it was prostitution was legal in Alaska until the 1950s. As a side note, I also knew prostitution in Florida was legal until 1943.
And did you know... that a 1902 small-time, prostitution case against Fred Rassmussen, which was appealed to the Supreme Court, was the reason Alaska went from being a "district" to a "territory"? Proving even little people can shake nations.
...That Robert Service's famous poem, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," may be based on an actual 1897 incident about a man by that name?
...That the killing of Charlie Dalmer in 1909, by Kitty O'Brian's teenage pimp Robert Stroud, resulted in Stroud being sentenced to prison, where he later killed another inmate? As a result, Stroud was sentenced to 38 years in solitary confinement. To keep his sanity he studied birds and produced some brilliant scientific works on birds and their diseases. He gained fame as the subject of Thomas Gaddis' best-selling book "Birdman of Alcatraz," which was later made into a popular movie starring Burt Lancaster. The film was nominated for numerous awards. Check out Robert Stroud's page on Wikipedia.
...That one Japanese prostitute---and there many of them in Alaska---escaped from her pimps, joined a protestant mission in San Francisco, went to school and married her teacher? Returning to Japan, where she became a leading feminist, she later went on a 1930s goodwill tour to the U.S. and met with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
...That during the 1910s, the U.S Forest Service management of the Chugach National Forest included supervising a small settlement of prostitutes to whom it had to issue "camping permits"?
And one very interesting story was of the woman mine owner, whose miners said they were taking the day off to visit prostitutes in Fairbanks. Not wanting to lose a day's production, and believing she could mix business AND pleasure, she offered to sexually take on her miners one by one, if they stayed at work. The miners accepted her offer, but were surprised when each found their next pay checks had fifty dollars deducted.
These are just a very few of the amazing stories related in the book.
This book was picked up on a trip to Alaska. Seattle Weekly Says: "Engagingly written and generously illustrated...for readers who like history with all the lusty and licentious parts left uncensored."
Lissette H. (yolen) reviewed Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush on + 92 more book reviews 
