The Mother of a Canadian Icon

Laura Berton was an amazing woman

Pierre Berton is my favourite historian. His books helped inspire me in my love of Canadian history, and my eventual creation of Canadian History Ehx.

I’ve read many of Pierre’s books, but recently I read the memoirs of Laura Berton, his mother. The book, I Married the Klondike, documents her life coming to the Klondike, meeting her husband Frank, her family and much more.

Laura was, needless to say, pretty fascinating.

She was born in 1878, and after becoming a teacher in Toronto, she took a job in Dawson City, Yukon in 1908. In Toronto she was paid $480 per year. In Dawson City, she made $2,100 per year. It was an easy choice.

She was 29 and only planned to stay in Dawson City for a couple years. Instead, she stayed for decades.

She came to the Klondike only a few years after the Gold Rush had finished and saw a changing community. Gone were the wild days of the gold rush as Dawson City began to settle itself down and become a regular community.

It was there she met her husband Frank. They married in 1912 and their first year of marriage, they lived in a tent in what was known as Sourdough Gully. When Frank enlisted with the Army during the First World War and was posted with the Royal Canadian Engineers Corp in Vancouver, she went with him.

They returned to Dawson City in 1919 and that was the year Pierre was born. Then a daughter named Lucy.

A few years later, in a boat Frank boat and outfitted that he called the Blueness, they took a trip down the Yukon River. It was a wild trip through rapids, among bears, and it was something the family remembered for the rest of their lives.

Through her life, Laura wrote for The Saturday Night Post, The Family Herald and The Dawson News.

During The Great Depression, the family moved to Vancouver and then Laura wrote a manuscript about her life in the Klondike called I Married The Klondike. She finished it in 1954, nine years after Frank died. It was eventually turned into a television movie. She also co-authored a book with her daughter for children called Johnny in the Klondike.

Laura passed away in 1967.