“What I wanted was not shelter and safety, but liberty and opportunity.”

At the age of 32, the unconventional spirit expressed in that statement took Martha to gold-rush-era Yukon while her first husband went off to Hawaii. Pregnant, and exhausted, she struggled over the legendary Chilkoot Pass, she fell in love with northern Canada, “this great big land” with its profusion of wildflowers, its midnight sun, its northern lights. Facing down despair during that first long, dark winter, she gave birth in a tiny Dawson cabin in January. She cooked in a mining camp, managed a sawmill, and went on to marry lawyer-politician George Black. George became Commissioner of the Yukon, making her chatelaine of Government House. In 1916, she headed off to war with the troops, serving as ‘Mother Yukon’ to soldiers in London.

After George was elected to Parliament and named Speaker of the House, she took on the role of grand hostess for Ottawa’s political scene. When George turned ill, Martha stepped in and got herself elected for Yukon, becoming only the second woman to take a seat in the House of Commons.

One of the North’s most tenacious and persevering women, Martha Black was truly irrepressible. Through her story of vulnerability, despair, comedy, joy and tragedy pulses the “Yukon spirit -Mush On!”

Enid Swerdferger Mallory was born near Ottawa, Ontario, and attended Queen’s University before becoming a social worker. After she and her husband moved to Kawartha Lakes country to start a family, her interest in regional history led to a new career of writing and storytelling. Mallory has written for Reader’s Digest, Canadian Geographic and The Beaver, and her previous books include The Remarkable Years: Canadians Remember the 20th Century, Close to the Earth: Have Your Garden and Eat it Too, Over the Counter: The Country Stores in Canada and Coppermine: The Far North of George M. Douglas. She resides in Peterborough, Ontario, with her husband, Gord.

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"Martha Louise Black was the unrivaled queen of all that host of men and women who sought the northern magic... she, above all, caught and reflected the true spirit of the Yukon."

Whitehorse Star