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Published Oct 2010
416 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
Between 1896 and 1899, thousands of people lured by gold braved a grueling journey into the remote wilderness of North America. Within two years, Dawson City, in the Canadian Yukon, grew from a mining camp of four hundred to a raucous town of over thirty thousand people. The stampede to the Klondike was the last great gold rush in history.
Scurvy, dysentery, frostbite, and starvation stalked all who dared to be in Dawson. And yet the possibilities attracted people from all walks of life - not only prospectors but also newspapermen, bankers, prostitutes, priests, and lawmen. Gold Diggers follows six stampeders - Bill Haskell, a farm boy who hungered for striking gold; Father Judge, a Jesuit priest who aimed to save souls and lives; Belinda Mulrooney, a twenty-four-year-old who became the richest businesswoman in town; Flora Shaw, a journalist who transformed the town’s governance; Sam Steele, the officer who finally established order in the lawless town; and most famously Jack London, who left without gold, but with the stories that would make him a legend.
Drawing on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and stories, Charlotte Gray delivers an enthralling tale of the gold madness that swept through a continent and changed a landscape and its people forever.
"Starred Review. A lively, delightful reenactment of a signal era of ‘Klondike mythology." - Kirkus
"Gray has hit pay dirt with this hardscrabble history, a vibrant, detailed recreation of the frenzied boomtown of Dawson City." - Publishers Weekly
"What a fascinating, rich account Ms. Gray's book presents of one of the most astonishing moments in Canadian history…" - The Globe and Mail
This information about Gold Diggers was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Charlotte Gray's Flint & Feather won the 2002 UBC Medal for Canadian Biography and the Drummer General’s Award. She is also the author of the multi-award-winning books Sisters in the Wilderness and Mrs. King. A graduate of Oxford University and a recipient of the Pierre Berton Award from Canada’s National History Society, Charlotte Gray lives in Ottawa. Visit her online at www.charlottegray.ca.
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