{"id":7406,"date":"2021-01-27T10:36:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T15:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7406"},"modified":"2021-01-27T10:42:24","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T15:42:24","slug":"episode-235-yukon-diary-the-sporting-girls-of-keno-city-i-e-prostitutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7406","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 235 YUKON DIARY THE “SPORTING GIRLS” OF KENO CITY (I.E. PROSTITUTES)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note:  This Episode might be a little too crude for some readers.  But it is<\/div>\n
part of my experience and certainly part of the mystique of the Yukon. Read<\/div>\n
it if you will.  You have been  warned.  Livingston Wernecke is a very large<\/div>\n
part of  Yukon history.  His story, very upright man that he was, has  been  reserved<\/div>\n
for a special  Episode…<\/div>\n

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EPISODE 235    YUKON DIARY   THE  \u201cSPORTING GIRLS\u201d OF KENO CITY (I.E. PROSTITUTES)<\/p>\n


<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
January 2021<\/div>\n

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NO PICTURES AVAILABLE,,,UNLESS YOU\u2019<\/div>\n
CAN FIND A COUPLE.  DOES  ANYONE HAVE<\/div>\n
 A PICTURE OF THE KENO CITY SPORTING GIRLS?<\/div>\n

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WHEN LIVINGSTON WERNECKE  MET MADAM VIMY RIDGE<\/div>\n

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(Below  is my interpretation of the night that Livingstone Wernecke, the puritanical mine manager on<\/div>\n
Keno Hill met Vimy Ridge, the lead Madam of the  sporting girls in Keno City.  The dialogue<\/div>\n
is fictitious but the event likely happened because  it is mentioned so often )<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cDid you hear what happened to old man Wernicke last night?:<\/div>\n
\u201cDid he fall asleep reading the Bible?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNope.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDid he persuade that Swede to sell the Elsa claims cheap?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNope\u201d<\/div>\n
Then what happened?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOld Man Wernecke paid Vimy Ridge a visit in her whorehouse in Keno City\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThe Madam who hires those sporting girls?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cRight.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI thought he was morally pure.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSo did one of  the boys  who was wrapped around a sporting girl at the time.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOne of our guys?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYep.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOur man looked  up, surprised and  said \u2018So you use this place too, Mr. Wernecke.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd Wernecke was embarrassed\u2026said nothing\u2026.buggered off.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy was he down there? He did not like having the sporting  girls<\/div>\n
around.  Immoral.  Giving his boys some bad habits.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHe  went down there to make sure Vimy Ridge allowed his<\/div>\n
doctor to check out he girls\u2026keep diseases out of Keno.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat diseases?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t be naive\u2026the \u2018Clap’\u2026you know right well\u2026Old Man Wernecke wanted to<\/div>\n
make sure his boys didn\u2019t end  up with syphillis or gonorrhoea .\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI thought he was trying to shut down the whoring in Keno City\u2026drive the<\/div>\n
sporting girls down to Mayo \u2026maybe  drive them back to Dawson where <\/div>\n
they came from.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou mean Wernecke has given up his crusade\u2026surrendered to the Madams\u2026\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cReckon so.  We\u2019ve got 800 men up here\u2026most of us  single\u2026Wernecke figured  he<\/div>\n
was fighting a losing battle.  Best to keep the girls  healthy if he could.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat happened  to the guy wrapped  around  the sporting girl?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNothing.  Wernecke just left the place.  Vimy Ridge let the mine doctor check<\/div>\n
out her girls.  Everybody seems to have won.\u201d<\/div>\n

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PROSTITUTION IN KENO CITY<\/div>\n

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HOW TO TELL IF A MINE IS SUCCESSFUL<\/div>\n

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In the summer of 1960, Dr. Paterson sent me on a short job to Elliot Lake\u2026the uranium<\/div>\n
capital of Canada.  Weird job that did  not make much sense to me.  Can  Met UrAnium mine<\/div>\n
had been closed down.  The stope pillars deep in the bedrock had been pulled.  The mine was<\/div>\n
collapsing as we conducted our survey through the doomed passageways.  I suppose<\/div>\n
it was dangerous but I was used to danger, rather liked danger.<\/div>\n

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We were assigned one of the last mine employees as an underground escort.  A rough talking, hard drinking, kind of guy.<\/div>\n
He asked me a question while we were sitting on a boulder that had  fallen from the<\/div>\n
mine ceiling when some roof bolts gave way.<\/div>\n

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\u201cAlan, do you know how to tell when a mine is successful?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhen the hookers arrive\u2026that\u2019s when we know.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDid they arrive here in Elliot Lake?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSure did.  Some of them did double duty working in the mess<\/div>\n
hall in the daytime and on heir backs at night.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAny still around?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAre you kidding.  They bugger off fast when the mine began to close down.\u201d<\/div>\n

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FLASH FORWARD TO THE YUKON JOB 1962<\/div>\n

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In 1962 there were no hookers in Keno City.  The great Keno Hill silver\/lead mines closed down<\/div>\n
in the 1930\u2019s\u2026hit hard by the 1929 Stock Market collapse and the U.S. refusal  to buy foreign <\/div>\n
silver.  The sporting girls were gone.   <\/div>\n

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But they had been in Keno City.  Perhaps a  dozen of them, maybe a few more  They had their cabins<\/div>\n
grouped around Keno.  The sporting girls did not dominate Keno City\u2026not nearly as dominant as<\/div>\n
they had been in Dawson City two decades  earlier.   some sources said that the Dawson City<\/div>\n
prostitutes  moved to Keno City once the gold rush ended in Dawson.  Possibly so.  But age<\/div>\n
would have crept up on them.  And active sporting girls in 1900 might be in her twenties.  That<\/div>\n
would make her 40 or 50 operating in Keno City.  A little old.  The Madams like Bombay  <\/div>\n
Peggy must have recruited younger girls.  Some sources say that big time criminals controlled<\/div>\n
the trade.  But that flesh business was  long gone by 1962.   Lots of stories  circulated as is<\/div>\n
the custom when young single men get together around a campfire.  The stories told were<\/div>\n
amusing.  Rough. Stories taken with a pinch of salt.<\/div>\n

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Like the story of one sporting girl in Keno who walked around town stark naked except<\/div>\n
for her painted toe nails.  The story was made more startling when someone observed<\/div>\n
her catch and kill a rabbit with her bare feet.  The rabbit was to be her dinner that night.<\/div>\n
Now who could believe that story?   Think about it.   Summer time in the Yukon is made<\/div>\n
miserable by clouds  of mosquitoes so dense that it is unlikely a nude woman would<\/div>\n
be walking around town\u2026unless she was insane.  Do  not rule out that possibility.<\/div>\n
Madness among these sporting girls I would not rule out.<\/div>\n

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Prostitution must be a miserable occupation.  Seems to me that The glorification of prostitution is <\/div>\n
exaggeration gone wild.  My experience? Zero.  Never had an inclination even.  I can identify closest<\/div>\n
to Livingstone Wernicke.   Sounds stuffy and boring around a campfire<\/div>\n
so most of the time I just listened to the stories.   Some were sort of amusing and  horrifying at<\/div>\n
the same time.  Like the story told by Bill Dunn who had a successful sex  escapade in Mayo <\/div>\n
Landing one night.  \u201cI fell asleep afterwards  and woke up to find the family sleeping<\/div>\n
in the same room.  They had been there in  the dark.\u201d  Some  readers will find that story<\/div>\n
disgusting.  Others amusing.  Still others will find it ridiculous\u2026fabricated.  Bill Dun had<\/div>\n
another story that seemed  true.   \u201cWe we\u2019re sitting in the Power wagon and she tried<\/div>\n
to put a knife in me.\u201d   Ring of truth there I felt.  But\u2026.<\/div>\n

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Which get  me back  to the sporting girls of Keno City.  No glory there.  Some Yukon writers<\/div>\n
like Pierre Berton (Klondike), Jack London (Call of the Wild), Robert Service (Songs of <\/div>\n
a Sourdough) give readers a distorted view of the lives of  sporting girls. <\/div>\n

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I think Dr. Aaro Aho\u2019s book (Hills  of Silver) paints the most accurate picture of<\/div>\n
the sporting girls of Keno City.<\/div>\n

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\u201cUp to seven eight sporting girls operated  in Keno in the 1920\u2019s and 1930\u2019s. They were<\/div>\n
known  by names  like Vancouver Lil, Jew Jess, Alice, Vimy Ridge, Silver Fox and Nora. and<\/div>\n
most had  seriously unhappy lives.  Some were exceptionally good hearted, others cruel,<\/div>\n
some made fortunes, but most worked for fear of their lives under organized vice rings<\/div>\n
centred in Vancouver, at least one of them, Silver Fox, was murdered there. (in Keno  City)\u201d<\/div>\n

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This strikes me as a bit odd.  Seven or eight sporting girls to service hundreds<\/div>\n
of miners seems a little one sided\u2026and exhausting.  But Dr. Aho seems to have<\/div>\n
researched the situation.  Let\u2019s say he missed a dozen.  Even so the population<\/div>\n
of girls of the line is very small.  <\/div>\n

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\u201cNora painted her toenails and often went around in the nude\u2026.Nora was really tough<\/div>\n
and in the 1930\u2019s moved in with one  the successful discoverers. She got him to hire<\/div>\n
a cook for $7 a day,  pushed dope, and  helped  him go  through $17,000in nine months<\/div>\n
whereupon his female partner \u2026 showed up and put a  stop to it.\u201d (P. 132 Aho, Hills of Silver)<\/div>\n

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\u201cMarie, a good looking woman, came to Keno in 1928, did very well as \u2018a girl on the line,\u201d<\/div>\n
bought another house, added onto it to make a restaurant, and got her boyfriend  Barney to cook<\/div>\n
for her. She then started a taxi business, but Barney Barney began to drink up the profits\u2026.She<\/div>\n
closed the cafe\u201d married several other men but became more and more mentally <\/div>\n
disturbed and impoverished.  Finally Marie  ended up on $20 a  month welfare then in<\/div>\n
1941 just disappeared one winter.  She was tracked to a broken bridge.  \u201cShe had no next of kin<\/div>\n
and no one ever made enquiries or tried to find her.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
So,  Aho reduces the sporting girl population to 7or 8 and most had unhappy lives.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
There were lots of things to do in Keno  City other than pay $3 a trick  to a sporting<\/div>\n
girl. \u201cice-skating, tennis, poop,ball game between the mines, villages, steamboat crews, <\/div>\n
swimming at Five Mile Lake, and occasionally boxing.\u201d  Add the sporting girls and<\/div>\n
there seems to have been lots of recreation activities.   Which one dominated<\/div>\n
Alcohol consumption.  \u201cBut from all accounts it would<\/div>\n
appear Keno\u2019s main recreation was drinking.\u201d (P. 130)<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Police?  The RCMP sent an  undercover man to infiltrate the criminals in Keno City.<\/div>\n
He was successful and a police raid followed.  Guess  who the criminals were?<\/div>\n
No mention of the sporting girls.  None.  But a lot of time and effort was spent trying<\/div>\n
to catch the bootleggers.  Lots of them during Prohibition.  Making hone brew out<\/div>\n
of anything they could find that could be distilled.  Proof that drinking was the main<\/div>\n
activity in Keno  Hill.<\/div>\n

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And that still seems to be the case if you have read these episodes.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Jan. 2021<\/div>\n

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Post Script:  No mention of sporting girls was made in my diary.  But I do remember<\/div>\n
one of the guys pointing out an elderly lady in the Chateau Inn, Mayo  Landing, and<\/div>\n
saying she was once a hooker in Keno.  She would be in her late 60\u2019s, perhaps  70\u2019s<\/div>\n
in 1962.   My memory is fuzzy.  Did I see her or just hear about her?   Apparently she<\/div>\n
returns to Mayo Landing in the summer time.  A generous person from whom old timers can<\/div>\n
always borrow a  few dollars.  Warm hearted.  Just a memory that I hope was true.<\/div>\n

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Dawson City prostitutes and their cabins.  Not glorious at all.   <\/div>\n

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