At the age of 27, Fannie
Sedlacek left her Bohemian homestead in Nebraska to join the gold rush
to the Klondike. From the Klondike to the Tanana, Fannie continued
north, finally settling in Katishna near Mount McKinley. This woman,
later known as Fannie Quigley, became a prospector who staked her own
claims and a cook who ran a roadhouse. She hunted and trapped and
thrived for nearly forty years in an environment that others found
unbearable.
Her wilderness lifestyle inspired many of those who met her to record
their impressions of this self-sufficient woman, who died in 1944. To
many of the 700,000 annual visitors to Denali National Park she is a
symbol of the enduring spirit of the original pioneers.
Searching for Fannie
Quigley: A Wilderness Life in the Shadow of Mount McKinley
goes beyond the mere biographical facts of this unique
woman’s journey. It also tells historian Jane G.
Haigh’s own story of tracking and tracing the many paths that
Fannie Quigley’s intriguing life took. Uncovering remote
clues, digging through archives, and listening to oral accounts from a
wide array of sources, Haigh has fashioned this rich lode into a
compelling narrative.
In Searching
for Fannie Quigley, Haigh separates fact from fiction to
reveal the true story of this highly mythologized pioneer woman..
|
Searching for Fannie
Quigley
A
Wilderness Life in the Shadow of Mount McKinley
by
Jane G. Haigh
Swallow Press, 2007.
Order
a copy
|
