| Dawson. Just at present things do not look so bright as they are pictured in the newspapers....anyone not brought up from childhood to the hardest kind of labor, is of no earthly use here....Now why I am saying so much about his wood is because it is no small matter....excepting the wood getting, we are as happy and content as we have not been in may years, although we were somewhat discouraged.
—letter from Rebecca Schuldenfrei to family in Pennsylvania, Dawson, October 17-20, 1897; Rebecca and Solomon Schuldenfrei, a middle-aged couple, sold an unsuccessful small business in New York City to get money to go to the Yukon. They ran a restaurant in Dawson city and attempted gold mining, all unsuccessfully.
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