Klondike Kate
Born in Junction City, Kansas in 1876, Kate began her career as a chorus girl while in her mid-teens. She later joined a vaudeville company on blind faith, her decision based on a friend's recommendation. After travelling west by train, from New York to Spokane, she discovered that her job required her to encourage men to purchase as many drinks as they could drink, as well as sing her songs and dance her dances. Her first reaction was to quit -- it was not the sort of establishment that she had been expecting; however, she resigned herself to stay since the cost of her train ticket had put her in debt. Eventually, she grew to enjoy her employment.
It was at this time that Kate saw the headlines about the Klondike Goldrush and made up her mind to go North.
Quitting the show, she hooked up with another dancer. Further on in her journey northward she was joined by three other women, all entertainers. By the midway point of the journey to the Klondike all four of her companions bowed out. Thus Kate, determined, continued on "buck and wing dancing" (tap dancing), and eventually made her way to the City of Gold after brief stints in Skagway and Whitehorse.
Kate arrived in Dawson City in 1900 and first worked as an entertainer at the Palace Grand. There is some confusion as to whether she stayed on until 1902 or 1904. In any case, during her time here she worked as a variety entertainer and dance hall girl. With her red hair and ability to sing and dance, she was very popular, especially with the miners.
Kate soon became involved with Alexander Pantages, the owner of Dawson's Orpheum Theatre (on Front Street). Regrettably, their attachment ended about 1905 in a breach of promise suit (she apparently sued him for $25,000). Kate left, only to return after a series of broken marriages.
Matson, a Norwegian who had spent the majority of his adult years mining in the Klondike, featured next in Kate's tumultuous life. Stories tell us of Johnny being smitten with her for over thirty years but, being a shy man, took that long to finally tell her about his love for her. In 1931, when the Alaska-Yukon Sourdoughs held a reunion in Portland, Oregon he decided that this was the opportunity to write and remind her of their meeting back at the turn of the century. Then began a strange correspondence which lasted two years and finally led to their marriage in 1933. Johnny Matson died in 1946, and Kate once again remarried after this.
Although her life after leaving the Klondike in the early 1900s was neither exciting nor lucrative, she was a gifted self-publicist; by the end of the 1920s, it is said that she really began capitalizing on her life as "Queen of the Yukon" ("Belle of Dawson" and "Klondike Queen" are examples of the titles she liked to use when referring to herself!). Thus it is difficult to ascertain, when speaking of Klondike Kate, what is fact and what is fiction.
Kate continued actively to promote herself and the goldrush legends of which she was a part and had helped to create, until her death in 1957. As you can see, judging from the literature and this very story, she suceeded in making a lasting impression.
R.C.M.P. Return with Bad News
Dawson Weekly News
January 7, 1947
After 26 days on the trail, during which time they encountered some of the severest weather of the winter, Const. Wilf Lee R.C.M.P. and his guide Johnnie Sestak, returned to Dawson December 27 after completing a 200-mile round trip patrol to Matson Creek where they buried the remains of the late, pioneer Yukoner placer miner and trapper.
Thus ends one of the year's most unusual sagas of the northern wilderness.
Perturbed because she had no word from her miner husband who was supposed to "come outside" this summer, Mrs. Kate Rockwell Matson, widow of the late pioneer, flew in here late last fall to ascertain the fate, if any, that might have befallen her husband. Joe Sestak, experienced Sixtymile trapper and woodsman, whose cabin is about thirty miles away from Matson's and who was his closest neighbour, made a trip to the old timer's cabin, fifty miles up the Sixtymile, shortly before the close of navigation. Joe returned with the tragic news that he had found Matson's body, mutilated by animals at one of his smaller trapping cabins, 8 miles from his main headquarters. Mrs. Matson received the news here in Dawson and knowing that she could do nothing further, returned to her home at Bend, Oregon.
...John was to have joined his wife outside this past summer. But the winds of fate had other plans. The oldtimer was destined to remain forever in the country that he loved, his remains interred on the bench overlooking his lonely cabin where he'd made his home these past forty years or more. He most likely would have wanted it that way.
**Story used with permission by and copyrighted to Guide to the Goldfields/Harper Street Publishing/Julie Wills
Do not use the story without permission by the copyright holder**
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