The good time girls.

A few years back, I stumbled across a book called "Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush: Secret History of the Far North"   I stumbled across this book many years ago and found it to be fascinating.  It was like reading a history book combined with a juicy soap opera digest.  I loved learning about the various characters, their lives and their specialties.

Each of the girls mentioned came alive with their stories, telling of their lives across the cold north as they struggled to make living.  Since I live in Fairbanks part of the year, I enjoyed learning more about the ladies who worked in Fairbanks.  It was awesome hearing how some of the businesses catered to those girls without "soiling" regular society.  Of how the boys could deliver things and mothers know their sons would not get hit upon.  Or of how the type of girls changed over the course of time. 

Yes I know its a book review but it gives a flavor of a time up in Alaska.  Even now, traveling can be challenging.  Back then, getting up here required you to travel by ship and then by foot up and over mountains in the early days and ship to Nome for later days.  Gold sparked the thirst of adventure to become a millionaire.  Even today, gold still calls to certain people. 

The cold hard reality is many people who struck it rich, ended up dying as paupers.  Many of those "good times girls" married and usually ended up out of the profession and considered respectable.  I thought the dichotomy between the two sides was facinating.

I may talk about some of the places they minded gold.  Remember for many, getting rich for some hard work was their idea of paradise.