Sincere thanks to my great critique group, Dorothy McIntosh, Jane Burfield, Donna Carrick, Madeleine Harris-Callway, and Cheryl Freedman. Write on, women! Thanks also to Verna Relkoff of the Mint Agency for manuscript suggestions and to Jerry Sussenguth who helped with the German accent, and to the great people at RendezVous for their help and support.
I have attempted wherever possible to keep the historical details of the Klondike Gold Rush, and the town of Dawson, Yukon Territory, accurate. Occasionally, however, it is necessary to stretch the truth in the interests of a good story. The historical record says that there wasn’t a single murder in Dawson in the year of the town’s heyday, 1898, therefore I have taken the liberty of inventing one. A few historical personages make cameos in the book: Big Alex McDonald, Belinda Mulroney, Inspector Cortlandt Starnes, but all dramatic characters and incidents are the product of my imagination.
The reader who is interested in learning more about the Klondike Gold Rush is advised to begin with the definitive book on the subject, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush 1896-1899 by Pierre Berton. Also by Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay 1897-1899.
Other reading:
The Klondike Gold Rush: Photographs from 1896-1899. Graham Wilson
Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush. Lael Morgan
The Last Great Gold Rush: A Klondike Reader. Edited by Graham
Wilson
Women of the Klondike. Francis Blackhouse
The Real Klondike Kate. T. Ann Brennan
Gamblers and Dreamers: Women, Men and Community in the
Klondike. Charlene Porsild
The Klondike Stampede. Tappan Adney.
For information about the NWMP:
They Got their Man: On Patrol with the North West Mounted. P.H.
Godsell
The NWMP and Law Enforcement 1873-1905. R.C. Macleod
Showing the Flag: The Mounted Police and Canadian Sovereignty
in the North, 1894-1925. W.R. Morrison
Sam Steele: Lion of the Frontier. R. Stewart