Kate Carmack Shaaw Tláa (~1863 – 1920)

Shaaw Tláa was born near Bennett Lake to parents Kaachgaawáa, the head of the Tlingit crow clan, and Gus’dutéen, a member of the Tagish wolf clan. She had seven sisters and brothers, and they lived in a Tagish village near Carcross.¹⁾

Shaaw Tláa married Kult’ús, a Tlingit man, in a traditional way that strengthened the ties between coastal and interior people. One of her older brothers and an older sister were living on the coast with Tlingit spouses when they died of some contagious disease. Shaaw Tláa’s sister Aagé was sent to the coast to marry the husband of the deceased sister but he died before she reached him. She became the third wife of his brother, L’unáát, a prominent headman of the Chilkoot Tlingit. Shaaw Tláa and Kult’ús lived in a long log structure that housed ten to thirty people including Aagé and L’unáát. Shaaw Tláa gave birth to a daughter in 1885. Kult’ús and their daughter fell ill and died in the fall of 1886. Traditionally she would have married a relative of her late husband, but her mother had lost too many children at the coast and called her home to Tagish.²⁾

George Carmack spent the winter in Tagish. He was adopted into the Deisheetaan and married Shaaw Tláa’s niece, Kitty, in the traditional way. The marriage was advantageous for the Tagish who might be able to trade directly with Carmack’s friend John Healy who had a post at Dyea. Kitty died within a few months of the marriage, and three weeks later, George and Shaaw Tláa (Kate) were married. They went to Dyea and packed supplies over the pass for some prospectors who planned to spend the winter inside. Late that fall there was a gold strike on the Fortymile River, the first time coarse gold was found in the Yukon River basin.³⁾

In 1888, George, Kate and her nephew Charlie spent the summer trading for furs on the Yukon River and doing a little prospecting on the Hootalinqua (Teslin) River. The winter was spent hunting and trapping with the Tagish. More prospectors came into the country in 1889 and George, Kate, Jim, and Charlie travelled to the Big Salmon River. The Tagish were reluctant to travel in Northern Tutchone territory, so they waited at the Yukon while George explored on his own. After that, Jim and Charlie returned south, and George and Kate went down the Yukon River to Forty Mile. The sternwheeler with winter supplies did not reach Forty Mile that fall. One account says that the Carmack spent the winter at Gordon Bettles’ post near the mouth of the Tanana River.⁴⁾

The Carmacks were back in the Fortymile drainage in the spring of 1889. George was mining on Nugget Gulch and Kate made and sold moccasins and mittens. They left Forty Mile in September 1892, boarding the sternwheeler New Racket for Harper’s post at Fort Selkirk where Reverend Thomas Canham and his wife were getting settled. Carmack brought logs down from Ladue’s sawmill and he and prospector Henry Davis built the Anglican rectory. Kate and George’s daughter, Graphie Grace (Aagé), was born at Fort Selkirk in January 1893.⁵⁾

Harper’s post was busy in the spring of 1893 and he was able to trade for 9,000 marten plus ten bales of lynx and fox skins. Harper staked Carmack in a half interest in a post that Carmack established on the Yukon River, above the Big Salmon River and near an outcrop of coal. [This site is now in the community of Carmacks.] George lost his boat on a trip to Forty Mile and Reverend Canham hired him to build the school at Fort Selkirk. Kate and George stayed in the area for the next two years.⁶⁾ George looked after the Selkirk store when Harper and his family went down to St. Michael in the summers of 1894 and 1895.⁷⁾

In May 1896, the Carmacks moved to Forty Mile. In June, George had a dream of two large king salmon with scales of gold. He and his family, and prospector friend Lou Cooper, left for the Klondike River, a river staked with fish weirs where large salmon could be caught. The salmon run was poor that year and Carmack decided he would have to hunt for winter meat. Late in July, Skookum Jim and his two nephews, Charlie and Kulsin (Patsy Henderson), arrived at the Klondike fish camp. George, Jim, and Charlie cut logs up the Klondike River with an idea of rafting them down the Yukon and selling them to the sawmill at Forty Mile. After that they went prospecting, leaving Patsy and Kate and her daughter at the fish camp. They followed a small tributary that they later renamed Bonanza Creek. In George’s letters to his sister, George said he panned good prospects on the creek, and they then visited Robert Henderson on Gold Bottom and told him about the results. Acting on Henderson’s suggestion, Carmack staked a claim on Gold Bottom but did not stay to work it after Henderson refused to sell him some tobacco. On the way back to the Klondike River, Carmack, Jim, and Charlie stopped near their last camp on Bonanza and panned out the coarse gold that would start the Klondike gold rush.⁸⁾

After George, Skookum Jim, and Dawson Charlie discovered gold on Rabbit (Bonanza) Creek, the couple had no money, although their claims would be worth millions. Kate spent that winter sewing mitten and moccasins and baking bread to sell to neighbouring miners.⁹⁾

In 1899, missionary Selina Bompas was seventy and Bishop Bompas encouraged her to give up the workload imposed by her students and adopted children. Kate’s niece, eight-year-old Mary Wilson came to live with the Carmacks. The Carmack family left Dawson near the end of June and arrived in Seattle in early July. They were asked to leave the Seattle Hotel after a domestic dispute. Four days later, while Carmack was out of town, Kate and Jim were arrested after causing a public disturbance.¹⁰⁾ George, Kate, and the two young girls travelled to San Francisco and then on to Rose (George’s sister) and her husband’s ranch in San Benito County. Kate had gold jewellery and wore fine clothes. Mary and Graphie attended the local school. In April 1900, George returned to Dawson for the spring clean-up while Kate and the girls remained in California.¹¹⁾

In June 1900, Carmack met Marguerite Laimee in Dawson, and he asked her to marry him. This despite having his common-law wife Kate and their daughter living with Carmack’s sister in California. George asked his sister Rose to tell Kate of his plans and that she should join Jim and Charlie in Seattle. He also instructed Rose to keep their daughter Gracie in California. Kate and Gracie were still at the California ranch in September. Rose rented a house in Hollister so her husband could get better medical attention. Kate was missing her daughter who was living with Rose, and she rented a house next door.¹²⁾ Kate tried legal action against Carmack but had no luck. She returned to the Yukon to live in Carcross in July 1901. By this time, Jim had severed his ties with Carmack, and he built Kate a home near his own. Kate’s daughter Graphie lived several years with her, attending the residential schools at Carcross and Whitehorse before moving to Seattle to live with George and Marguerite. Kate nursed Jim through his final illness.¹³⁾

Kate Carmack died about age fifty of pneumonia after a bout of the Spanish flu that lasted ten days. Her estate included a pair of sealskin gauntlets and a gold watch.¹⁴⁾ George Carmack died in 1923 and left an estate estimated at $180,000 to his wife Marguerite. Graphie, now Mrs. Saftig, made an application to the Washington State Court to be recognized in the estate. The court declared George's marriage to Kate binding, and Graphie was awarded some of the estate.¹⁵⁾

In 2019, Kate Carmack was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame for her integral role in the gold discovery that set off one of the world’s greatest gold rushes, established Yukon as a political entity, and opened Canadian eyes to northern possibilities. Oral histories shared in Yukon Indigenous communities suggest that Kate found the first nugget of gold.¹⁶⁾