History has long ignored many of the earliest female pioneers of the Klondike Gold Rush of North America-the prostitutes and other "disreputable" women who joined the mass pilgrimage to the booming gold camps at the turn of the century. Leaving behind hometowns in North America and Europe and most constraints of the post-Victorian era, the "good time girls" crossed both geographic and social frontiers, finding freedom, independence, hardship, heartbreak, and sometimes astonishing wealth.
These women possessed the courage and perseverance to brave a dangerous journey into a harsh wilderness where men sometimes outnumbered them more than ten to one. Many later became successful entrepreneurs, wealthy property owners, or the wives of prominent citizens. Their influence changed life in America's Far North forever.