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had first-class health and made up in endurance what I lacked in avoirdupois, along with a firm determination to take up the first honest work that presented itself, regardless of choice, and in the meantime to secure a few gold claims, the fame of which had for two years reached my ears.
In regard to the truthfulness of this record I have tried faithfully to relate my experiences as they took place. Not all, of course, have been included, for numerous and varied trials came to me, of which I have not written, else a far more thrilling story could have been told.
Enough has, however, been noted to give my readers a fair idea of a woman's life during a period of eighteen months in a few of the roughest mining camps in the world; and that many may be interested, and to some extent possibly instructed by the perusal of my little book, is the sincere wish of the author.
MAY KELLOGG SULLIVAN.
CHAPTER I.
UNDER WAY.
My first trip from California to Alaska was made in the summer of 1899. I went alone to Dawson to my father and brother, surprising them greatly when I quietly walked up to shake hands with them at their work. The amazement of my father knew no bounds,--and yet I could see a lot of quiet amusement beneath all when he introduced me to his friends, which plainly said:
"Here is my venturesome daughter, who is really a 'chip off the old block,' so you must not be surprised at her coming to Alaska."
Father had gone to the Klondyke a year before at the age of sixty-four, climbing Chilkoot Pass in the primitive way and "running" Miles Canyon and White Horse Rapids in a small boat which came near being swamped in the passage.
My brother's entrance to the famous gold fields was made in the same dangerous manner a year before; but I had waited until trains over the White Pass and Yukon Railroad had been crossing the mountains daily for two weeks before my
A Woman who went to Alaska, page 2
by May Kellogg Sullivan