Sex Work in the Klondike Gold Rush

Why on earth would anyone make a perilous journey across wilderness and snow covered mountains, all because of a bit of gold?

This isn't Lord of the Rings, it's the Klondike Gold Rush, when an estimated hundred thousand people made the journey across Alaska to goldfields in the Klondike region, Canada. Among them, women.

But why did women make this journey? How much of their work was sex work?

Kate is joined by Brian Castner for this episode about life in the Alaskan Gold Rush. Brian is the author of ‘Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike’.

This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  

You can take part in our listener survey here.

All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.