Loading
LB![]()
author
Laura Beatrice Berton
Laura Beatrice Berton (1878-1967) was a Canadian teacher and author.
Born Laura Beatrice Thompson on March 13, 1878 into a well-to-do family Ontario, Canada, she began her career ...view moreLaura Beatrice Berton (1878-1967) was a Canadian teacher and author.
Born Laura Beatrice Thompson on March 13, 1878 into a well-to-do family Ontario, Canada, she began her career as a school teacher in Toronto.
In 1907, aged 29, she was offered an initial one-year contract as a kindergarten teacher in Dawson City, Yukon. She settled into her new life in the nearby mining town of Granville, where she soon met and married Francis “Frank” Berton, a miner and engineer who crossed the formidable Chilcoot Pass during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Their son Pierre was born in Whitehorse, Yukon in 1920, and daughter Lucy following in 1921 in Dawson City.
The Depression led the Berton family to move to Victoria, British Columbia in 1932, but her life for 25 years in Yukon inspired Laura’s later autobiography, I Married the Klondike (1954), which went on to become a classic and enduring memoir. Pierre and Lucy also followed in their mother’s footsteps and went on to become popular writers, with Lucy Berton Woodward co-authoring Kidnapped in the Yukon in 1968 with her mother, and Pierre Berton co-founding the Writers’ Trust of Canada. Like his father, Pierre also worked in Klondike mining camps during his years as a history major at the University of British Columbia.
Laura Beatrice Berton passed away in 1967.view less