In Frontier Spirit: The Brave Women of the Klondike by Jennifer Duncan (Anchor Canada), we meet women who escaped the prison of propriety and domesticity by joining the Gold Rush to the Yukon. Some travelled on their own; others followed their husbands; one carried on up the trail after her husband chickened out.

This book is a collection of short accounts, so reading it is a bit like watching hockey highlights: the women seem to live their lives at a frenetic pace, travelling back and forth from north to south many times and rebuilding (more than once) after their fortunes are wiped out by fire. I have few quibbles with this good book.

To a modern woman like me, the energy and determination of these women is both inspiring and exhausting.