Martha Black, 2nd Woman MP
Klondike Gold Rush miner, Yukon business woman & Member of Parliame
Determined to find wealth in the Klondike Gold Rush, Martha Louis Munger Purdy Black instead found riches of another sort: love, friendship, adventure and a beloved home.
Wife and Mother in the Gold Rush
In 1898, Chicago socialite Martha Purdy arranged with her father and her railroad tycoon father-in-law to care for her two sons while she trekked to the Klondike Gold Rush with her husband, Will Purdy, and brother, George Munger, Jr.. The young men were going to pan for gold, but Martha hoped to simply collect it. She had persuaded a local family to give her half of their $1 million bequest, left to them by their prospector father, if she could manage to collect it.
By the time they arrived in Seattle, Will was disillusioned by talk of the cold, dangerous north, and opted to go the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) instead. Martha refused to abandon her dream, and they parted ways forever.
She and George hired packers in Dyea, Alaska, to haul their supplies up “the worst trail this side of hell” and through the 3,500' Chilkoot Pass. In her long fashionable skirt, Martha climbed the almost perpendicular 100' wall of ice-covered rock, crossed Lake Bennett in a makeshift boat, and survived the river trip through the seething White Horse Rapids.
Life in Dawson
Martha and George settled into two small log cabins in the shanty town of Dawson. While her brother worked his claim, Martha made the rounds of government offices trying to verify the bequest. Within a few weeks she discovered two things: the bequest search was hopeless, and she was pregnant. Not wanting to travel back over the pass in her condition, she persuaded her now-angry brother that she should stay with him over the long, cold winter.
They made many friends, survived an outbreak of typhoid fever and smallpox, and grew to love the vast outdoors. During a raging snowstorm, Martha gave birth to her third son.
In the spring Martha’s father arrived to take her and her child home. But life in Chicago proved extremely dull for the newly divorced woman. After hearing from George that a fire had razed most of Dawson, Martha talked her father into letting her return to set up a lumber mill, with herself as its manager.
George Black, MP
George Black had earned a law degree in New Brunswick and quickly discovered that he had a better chance of becoming wealthy as a lawyer than as a prospector. He also became interested in politics and served on the Yukon Council. When Martha consulted him on legal matters, he was immediately taken with her. She wasn’t sure that she had room in her life for a man seven years her junior, but her sons took a shine to him and, in 1904, Martha finally agreed to marry him. They remained together for 53 years.
Dedicated to the Yukon
The Black family spent a few years in Vancouver but returned to their beloved Yukon when George was appointed Commissioner of the territory in 1912. After fighting in Europe during World War I, George won a Conservative Party seat in the federal election and represented the Yukon for 4 terms. In 1930 he was also elected Speaker of the House of Commons. During their time in Ottawa, Martha became a renowned hostess and fierce supporter of their Yukon constituents. When George resigned his seat due to illness, she ran in his place as an independent candidate. In 1935, at the tender age of 70, Martha Black became Canada’s second woman Member of Parliament.
Martha’s adventurous life included a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and for her wild flower collection, a Fellowship in Britain’s Royal Geographic Society. She died in Whitehorse at age 91.
Reference: Black, Martha Louise. My Ninety Years. Anchorage, Alaska: Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, 1976.
