TALES OF THE YUKON (274 ENGLISH)

TALES OF THE YUKON (274 ENGLISH)

EMILIE FORTIN TREMBLAY  (274 ENGLISH) 

                  Emilie Fortin was born on January 4^th, 1872 in Saint Joseph-d’Alma in Quebec. When Emilie was fifteen years old, her family emigrated to Cohoes, New York, US. There she met Nolasque Tremblay whom she married on December 11^th, 1893. On June 16^th, 1894, after a honeymoon covering 5000 (8000 km) riddled with laughable events  Emilie arrived at Fortymile, Yukon.  She considered  herself to be the first white woman to have crossed the Chilkoot Pass and she was very proud of that feat.The couple spent one winter at Miller Creek in a small logwood cabin with windows made of green bottles and a roof which turned into a garden in the summer. That year Emilie sent out invitations to all the miners of the region inviting them to a Christmas meal. The invitation was  written on birch-bark wood. The Christmas menu was to be: stuffed rabbit, roasted caribou, boiled brown beans, King Oscar sardines, dehydrated potatoes, sourdough bread and prune pudding.From the fall of 1895 to the spring of 1898, the Tremblays visited their families in the United States and in Quebec. They returned through the Chilkoot Trail right in the middle of the Gold Rush.  During four months in 1906, they travelled to  Europe.Up until 1913, Emilie and her husband travelled around in the Klondike from one mining site to another. Following financial difficulties, they settled in Dawson City where she opened a store for ladies’ clothes.  This store was situated at the corner of King Street and 3^rd Avenue and it is now a historical building in the city; the tourist industry  uses it now,Over the years she had become the godmother of 25 children and even raised one of her nieces, her sister’s daughter for her sister had been left a widow with nine children. On her return from Europe she had decided to bring the young girl with her to the Yukon.  The Tremblay’s house was always open to travelers, to  missionaries, and to widows. Bishop Bunoz called Emilie the “Mother of the  Missionaries of the Klondike.” During the First World War, she knit 263 pairs of slippers for the soldiers and this is without counting those she offered as gifts.Emilie Tremblay was a very courageous  woman who distinguished herself in  devotion to others.  She was a life member of the order “Daughters of the Empire.” She was even the founder of the group “Ladies of the Golden North” of  and the president of the “Yukon Group of Women Pioneers.” The numerous medals which she received for her good deeds and a few souvenirs were given to the museum in Saguenay, Quebec.One year after the death of her husband in 1935.  She visited her relatives in Quebec and the United States.  In 1940, after her return to Dawson City she was  68 years old and she married Louis Lagrois in Dawson City.  At this point she quit her commercial enterprises and moved to her new husband’s the  cabin in Grand Forks (Yukon).In August 1946, Emilie went to San Francisco, U.S. To attend an annual congress of former Yukon pioneers. At the end of her life, she shared her memories with Father Marcel Bobillier and he used them to write a book entitled “Une pionnière du Yukon”: A Yukon Pioneer” and it was published in 1948 in Chicoutimi, Quebec. After a well-filled life, Emilie Tremblay died at the age of 77 on April 22, 1949 in a senior citizens’ residence in Victoria, British Columbia.The French school in Whitehorse was named in honor of this northern heroine. In 1995,  a group of students of the Emilie Tremblay School produced a video-cassette narrating the important moments of her life.Ref: Empreinte- “La presence francophone au Yukon” (The Francophone Presence in the Yukon” (1825-1950), Volume 1, p 16-18.