Yukon who is who

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Frederick “Fritz” Kloke (1863 - 1919)
	
Fritz Kloke was born in Marsberg, Westfallia, Germany.((Alaska Library, PCA 381, Fritz Kloke Photograph Collection, ca 1892-1905.)) His parents were Joseph and Elizabeth (Schirmer). Fritz came to the United States in 1885.((“Frederick “Fritz” Kloke.” //Find a Grave,// 2020 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31651386/frederick-kloke.)) 
	
In 1892, Kloke wrote to someone in the United States government after he heard from Captain Peterson that there would be reindeer purchased and distributed in Alaska. Kloke was freighting with dogs in the winter from Forty Mile Creek in Alaska and thought that reindeer would much superior for his business. He asked that if reindeer were not available, he would like two cows and a bull. He offered to pay all expenses and suggested that the animals be delivered to St Michael, kept in St. Michael for the winter, and delivered to Kloke in the spring.((United States Office of Education, Annual Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893: 37.))
	
Kloke was fishing [for grayling] at the mouth of the Klondike River in the spring of 1896. He was drying the fish under a shed of poles covered in canvas.((Tappan Adney, //The Klondike Stampede.// Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994: 283.)) At least one person thought that the Dawson townsite staked by Joseph Ladue should have belonged to Kloke who had a fishery and a garden where Dawson grew. Kloke’s ten years spent in the north before 1898 were hard. In one stretch of four years he had only thirty-two pounds of sugar and averaged three or four cans of milk a year. He fried his bacon first and then mixed the grease with flour, thinning it with water, and then fried it. He claimed it tasted a small bit like an omelette. He and two associates drank juniper or rose-leaf tea but still he suffered from scurvy one year and lost all his teeth.((Alice Palmer Henderson, //The Rainbow’s End: Alaska.// H.S. Stone & Company, 1898: 240, 293.))
	
Kloke was described as a teamster in an 1896 report from North-West Mounted Police Superintendent Charles Constantine. That summer there were four dog mushers fishing for dog food with nets along the Yukon River between the U.S. Boundary and the Klondike. Kloke’s net was nine miles downriver from Fort Constantine. He was unsuccessful in catching enough fish to feed his twenty-three dogs and he left for Circle City, Alaska in the fall. The salmon run was very poor that year.((Correspondence from Charles Constantine to the Deputy Minister of the Interior in Ottawa, 13 November 1896; Yukon Archives, Anglican Church Records, COR 262, file 6. //ExploreNorth,// 2020 website: http://www.explorenorth.com/library/misc/bl-ytnov1896.htm.))
	
Kloke was the original locator of Claim No. 9 Above Discovery on Bonanza Creek.((“Original Locators Bonanza & Eldorado” in Yukon Archives, D. E. Griffith, “Forty-Milers on Parade.” Coutts coll. 78/69 MSS 087 f.5.)) In the summer of 1897, Fritz Kloke was prospecting in the Dawson area and paid $10 to the government for developing a quartz claim and a mill.((“Report for the Timber and Mines Branch, statement of receipts by Dominion Land Agents at Dawson, 16 June 1897 to 14 July 1897. Official Report of Debates, House of Commons, Volume 46, Canada House of Commons, 1898: 466.)) 

In the summer of 1900, Kloke had a working coal mine at Five Fingers Rapids.((Ken L. Elder, ed., "30. Tantalus Butte Coal Mine." //Study Tour of the Yukon and Alaska.// 1990.)) The company of Bleeker, Dejournal, Miltor [Milton?] and Anics leased the Five Finger Coal Mine to Kloke and Webster for the season of 1903. They mined 1,500 tons, 900 of which was shipped to Dawson and the rest lying at the mines. This mine was expected to produce 3000 tons to the area.((NWMP 1903 Annual report, Report of Sergeant Thorne, Tantalus Detachment, 1903: 37.))
	
Kloke left the Yukon in September 1904 to travel to Calexico, San Diego county, California.((Clary Craig list of people dying or leaving the Yukon. “Klondike Pioneers from California.” Yukon & Alaska Genealogy Centre. YukonAlaska.com, 2020 website: http://yukonalaska.com/pathfinder/gen/CaliforniaDb.htm)) Isabella Mary Dossel arrived in Skagway in 1887. There is an unconfirmed story of her marrying Captain John J. Healy, and after his death marrying family friend Fritz Kloke. Kloke looked after her mining interests. She moved to the Imperial Valley in 1904 and became a prominent member of society. Fritz Kloke and Isabella Mary Dossel were married in 1907 in Los Angeles.((Isabelle Mary Dossel Kloke.” //Find a Grave,// 2020 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31651391/isabella-mary-kloke.)) 
	
The First State Bank of Calexico was incorporated in March 1905. Fritz Kloke was president in 1908 and he was a director with the largest number of shares, holding 143 out of a total of 238.((“First State Bank of Calexico.” //Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly… of the State of California…// Volume 3, Sup’t State Printing, 1909: 380-381.)) In 1911, Kloke was elected a director of the new Imperial Valley Irrigation District. He was carried into office in a unanimous vote of the whole southern end of Imperial county.((“District wins 1292 to 361.” //Calexico Chronicle// (Calexico), Volume II, Number 131, 13 July 1911.)) In 1915 Fritz Kloke was the president of the Calexico National Bank and the park superintendent of Calexico.((“Park Superintendent Plants Initial Trees.” //Calexico Chronicle// (Calexico), Volume XI, Number 69, 25 February 1915.)) In 1916, Mrs. Kloke died of ptomaine poisoning with her husband by her side.((Isabelle Mary Dossel Kloke.” //Find a Grave,// 2020 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31651391/isabella-mary-kloke.)) Fritz Kloke died three years later in Mexico while on a two-month trip to Matzalan regarding land interests.((“Frederick “Fritz” Kloke.” //Find a Grave,// 2020 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31651386/frederick-kloke.))