Mae Field
Mae Field was born in Minnesota and ran away to Duluth when she was young.1) “Whiskey” Bartlett managed her time at the Comique Theatre until her brother took her home. She ran away again a month later to dance at Hill City, South Dakota. She married Arthur Field who had owned and managed bars in the area since 1890. They honeymooned on the way to the Klondike with Arthur’s mining equipment. They lost most of the equipment on the trip, but the couple arrived safely in late June 1898. They acquired claims on Bear Creek and Arthur applied for a liquor licence as a back-up plan. There were warnings of a food shortage in Dawson that winter and Mae returned south. Her mother sent her back north and she was able to return to Dawson before navigation closed. Mae recalled that they cleaned up about $100,000 in the spring of 1899.2)
Mae went outside in mid-summer and returned in the fall. She was on the sternwheeler Willie Irving and watched the Stratton get caught in the ice and sink in thirteen feet of water just ahead of her boat. The Willie Irving was also caught in the ice, and her account of making it safely to shore is dramatic.3) The story may be factual as both sternwheelers sank within sight of the Selwyn Station wood camp in October 1899, and within a day of one another. No lives were lost but passengers from the Stratton were denied help from Constable Herbert Gregory at the Selwyn NWMP detachment. Gregory was sick in bed and was subsequently removed from his position in charge of the detachment.4) Mae recalled that the passengers walked to Dawson in eighteen hours while she secured passage on a scow to Stewart and arrived in Dawson with the mail carrier and his dog team.5)
By February 1900, Mae was dancing again and became known as The Doll of Dawson.6) She went to court to receive a hundred in back wages from J. H. Sutton and Walter Woodburn for her services as a dance hall girl in the Opera House. In another case, a laundry took her to court when she refused to pay, and her underwear became a topic of discussion. Mae was told to pay for the extra work involved in cleaning her silken material with many frills. Mae was dressed in grand style with large diamond pendants in her ears and jewels on her fingers. She was protesting an eighteen-dollar laundry bill because the price list said eight dollars for underwear. She denied that her clothing needed extra care. She was ordered to pay $12.05, and her star witness paid the fine.7)
In 1901, Arthur still had the mine at Bear Creek but he started working as a bartender at the Northern Annex Saloon and later bought the business. In 1902, he and a partner bought the Bodega Block in Hot Springs, South Dakota and by that time Arthur was presenting himself as a single man. In February 1903, Mae attempted to shoot herself in the Northern Annex. She was arrested and said that she had not meant to commit suicide but merely wanted her husband’s attention. The court sentenced her to a three-month suspended sentence. In May 1904, the Dawson authorities ordered all prostitutes to move to the White Chapel area on Fourth Avenue. There was a complaint when Mae did not move, but she solved the problem by buying a small lot with two cabins on Fourth and advertising furnished rooms. Arthur was listed as the proprietor of the Northern Annex through 1905 and was a miner and bartender in Dawson through 1910.8)
In 1908, the Orpheum dance hall hired Mae and she became one of the most popular dancers. By that time, she had a steady relationship with a local businessman, Harry Strong. The police kept her under surveillance and finally charged her with keeping a bawdy house. Judge C.D. Macaulay called her a well-known character and sentenced her to three-month hard labour and she was ordered to leave the country. She returned to Dawson in 1911 and wrapped up her affairs before leaving with a forwarding address in Vancouver. In 1912, Mae Field was living in Ketchikan, Alaska where she ran a legitimate boarding house. She is reported to have chosen Alaska because people don’t ask personal questions in the north, but Ketchikan was also the home of Henry Strong, president of the Ketchikan Steamship Company.9)