WEALTH WOMAN

Once known as the richest Indian woman in America, Kate Carmack, first called Shaaw Tláa, played a pivotal role in the rush for Klondike gold. She was vilified; she was romanticized. This authentic narrative of the Klondike Gold Rush and its aftermath, from the perspective of those who were there first—the indigenous peoples of Alaska and the Yukon—shows Kate as a powerful and central figure in the history of the north.

From a small, isolated Athabascan Indian tribe, Shaaw Tláa was given in marriage to prospector George Carmack, who renamed her Kate. During a decade of wandering with her husband, she met nearly every key figure in gold rush history. In 1896, on an expedition up the Klondike River, Kate’s brother Skookum Jim, accompanied by her nephew and her husband, discovered the gold that set off one of the biggest stampedes in history. Four years later, George abandoned Kate at a California ranch, where she had to fight for her wealth, her family, her reputation, and her survival.
Through correspondence, legal proceedings, ethnographic study, and the generosity of Kate’s Tagish relatives, the true story of Kate Carmack is finally told.

Deb Vanasse is author of the novels Cold Spell, No Returns and A Distant Enemy and co-founder of the 49 Alaska Writing Center. At age 21, Vanasse was dropped by a bush pilot on a gravel runway in middle of the Alaska wilderness. No roads, no houses, no cars, almost no people. She found home in that state and three decades later, is still thriving in Alaska.