Martha Black

Martha Louise Black was born Martha Munger in Chicago on February 24, 1866, to a well-to-do family. In 1898, her marriage failing, she joined the Klondike stampede, climbed the Chilkoot Pass on foot while pregnant, and floated down the Yukon River to Dawson City. Her son was born that winter in a cabin on the hillside above town.

Rather than return to comfortable society life, Black stayed. She staked claims, ran a sawmill and a mining operation, and became one of Dawson's most respected citizens. In 1904 she married lawyer George Black, who was appointed Commissioner of the Yukon in 1912 and later elected the territory's member of Parliament. Martha became famous in her own right as an authority on Yukon wildflowers, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for her botanical work.

When ill health prevented George from contesting the 1935 election, Martha ran in his place and won, at age 69 becoming only the second woman ever to sit in the Canadian House of Commons. She represented the Yukon from 1935 to 1940, then handed the seat back to her recovered husband. Appointed to the Order of the British Empire, she published a lively autobiography, My Seventy Years, in 1938. She died in Whitehorse on October 31, 1957, remembered as the 'First Lady of the Yukon.'