- Two Women in the Klondike, 1898. The exploits of Teddy Roosevelt, among other popular heroes, created a mania for travel and adventure among turn-of-the-century Americans. Among women, Lady Stanhope, Annie Peck, and Isabel Burton were outstanding explorers/travelers of the 19th century. Moneyed vacationers who wanted to follow their example but with less risk paved the way for such leisure escapes as dude ranches and camera safaris. But in 1898 the tenderfeet who tried roughing it for fun usually came back somewhat tougher. Such a pair were Mrs. Roswell Hitchcock and Edith Van Buren, two east coast society matrons who decided to join the gold rush to the Klondike region of the wild Yukon Territory. Before setting out, they donned tailor-made Page 63 →travel costumes and posed with their Great Danes in fake woods and snowstorms. (The photos on shipboard and in the tent are genuine). When they got to the real thing, however, the mud was ankle deep, the weather terrible, the roads nonexistent, and their custom-made tent apparently the worst shelter in the camp city of thousands which popped up around the rough frontier town of Dawson. Mrs. Hitchcock chronicled their trip in Two Women in the Klondike (Putnam’s, 1899). The critics panned it as frivolous because it read like a cheerful gossip column. Nonetheless, they had a rugged trip, and their story is thoroughly entertaining.
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