In the book, Gold Rush Women written by Claire Murphy/Jane Haigh on pages 34 and 35 there is some information regarding Chrystal Snow Jenne. I have found other information regarding her father and the George Snow family and have compiled it here. I am hoping to find the ancestors of this gold seeking family. George Snow and Anna Unknown met in a gold camp in California, USA and later married about 1881. They gave dramatic performances around the Northwest. Monte Snow was born in unknown place on West Coast of USA in 1882 Crystal Brilliant Snow was born in an unknown place on the West Coast of USA in 1884. When George heard rumors of gold in the Yukon Basin in 1887, he quickly accepted a six-week engagement in Alaska. In Juneau, Alaska George found it more profitable to entertain miners than to join them prospecting for gold. The Snows brought the first legitimate theater to Alaska, presenting classical plays as an alternative to the town's bawdy dance halls and vaudeville shows. Three-year old Crystal and five year old Monte sang for the miners, who would throw them gold nuggets in a show of appreciation. Since supplies came to Juneau only once a month by boat, Anna scrambled to sew costumes for each new show. Over the years, George frequently left his family for long periods of time to prospect for gold in the Interior of Alaska. Crystal's mother eventually insisted the whole family accompany him. Their friends in Juneau thought they were crazy to go into such wild country, especially with children. But Crystal wasn't afraid. She was determined to prove that she could be one of the first little girls to climb the Chilkoot Pass. In the spring of 1894, the Snows lashed their bedding, clothes, tools, a tent and a year's supply of food to a Yukon sled and spent weeks on the trail ferrying their supplies up and over the pass. Every night at camp, Crystal and her brother helped out by cutting wood for the fire. Once over the summit, they reached the Yukon River. From there they traveled several hundred miles to Forty Mile mining camp in the western Interior of Alaska. Life was easier in the new settlement. The family stayed with John and Bella Healy, old friends from Juneau, until their own cabin was built. Crystal and Monte went to school at the Buxton Mission run by Anglican Bishop William Bompas and Crystal learned to speak Athabaskan. Her father was prospecting again, so she, her mother and brother entertained the miners to support themselves. Unable to stay put for long, George took off again in 1895 for the new gold strike near Circle City. When a broken collar bone prevented George from mining gold, the Snows built a log opera house and, once again, entertained the residents of a boom town. In Alfred Brooks', Blazing Alaska's Trails page 333 regarding Circle City, "This town had its "opera house" where in 1895 George Snow, the pioneer actor of the Yukon, gave performances with his troupe which included several women." In Bill Hunt's, North of 53 degrees, regarding Circle City page 20, "Harry DeWindt's, an English traveler stopped in Circle in 1896. Circle's entertainments did not appeal to the English visitor. He had heard that the previous year a theatrical company of six women and five men had struggled over the Chilkoot Pass to present a "drama of the blood-curdling type," but only the dance halls were operating at the time of his visit." In Pierre Berton's, The Klondike Fever p. 32 "By 1896 it [Circle City] had a music hall, two theaters, eight dance halls, and twenty-eight saloons. It was known as "the Paris of Alaska," where money was so free that day-laborers were paid five times as much as they were "Outside," as the Alaskans called the rest of the civilized world." "In the big new double-decker Grand Opera House, George Snow, half miner, half entrepreneur, who had once starred with Edwin Booth in California, produced Shakespearean plays and vaudeville turns. Snow's children appeared on stage and picked up nuggets thrown to them by miners hungry for entertainment." Rumors of a big strike slowly filtered down the Yukon River to the bustling "Paris of Alaska" and the Snow family soon left Circle City to follow the gold to the Klondike in 1896. In Pierre Burton's, The Klondike Fever, page 91 "[In Dawson 1897] Harry Ash, the big, florid bartender from Circle City [had the] Northern Saloon [which] was little more than a plank floor with a tent covering, but the very sawdust on the floor glittered with fine gold. On May 23, Monte Snow, a teen-age boy from Circle whose father had arrived with a theatrical troupe, walked into the saloon and was greeted by Ash, who pointed to the sawdust-covered space in front of the bar. "Take that sawdust, go down to Joe Ladue's [sawmill] and get two more sacks. Pan it out, and I'll give you what you get." Snow did not think this worth while, but when Ash offered him twenty-five dollars for all the gold he could pan from the sawdust he changed his mind. In two hours he took out two hundred and seventy-five dollars in fine dust which had sifted out of miner's pokes slapped onto the bar above. All business was transacted in gold. Banknotes, indeed, were so scarce that when the occasional twenty-dollar bill turned up it could be sold for twenty-five dollars." In another version of Monte Snow's panning for gold Ellis Lucia, in Klondike Kate 1873-1957, pages 51 and 52 relates the following. "Prices were high and climbing steadily as the rip-roaring camp [Dawson] spread out across the bottomland. Dance hall girls were getting one hundred dollars a night, plus whatever they could make on the side. Cigars went for $1.50 apiece, tea for eight-times its value "Outside," cabins for $200 a square foot, and lots for sums up to $12,000. Anyone with ingenuity and initiative quickly realized there were less strenuous ways to find gold than working at the claims, of miners were fun-loving fools. When the son of George Snow, a theatrical producer from Circle City, strode into Harry Ash's saloon one day, Ash offered him rights to the sawdust by the bar. The boy thought him crazy so Ash promise[s] him twenty-five dollars to pan it out. Inside of two hours the youth panned $275 in dust that had sifted from miners' pokes while they were standing at the bar. It wasn't long before waiters and handy men in the saloons were staking "sawdust rights" in the bars and dance halls, and the barkeeps quickly learned how to short-change the miners by underweighing pokes and keeping resin on their fingertips, to which some of the dust would stick. Yes, there were other ways of mining goldand the early tinhorns and slickers hadn't realized as yet what a giant bonanza they were sitting upon. The Klondike soon would produce the maddest, gayest, lustiest, most expensive whing-ding in frontier history." Again in The Klondike Fever, page 379, "Monte Snow and his sister once picked up one hundred and forty-two dollars thrown at them as they danced and snag on the stage, while little Margie Newman, "The Princess of the Klondike," sometimes stood heel-deep in nuggets after she rendered a sentimental song." The Snow family mined for gold all through that cold winter of 1897-1898 and struck it rich at last. The Snows left for Seattle in 1899, carrying more than $80,000. But George Snow lost it all when he poured all their money into a theater company that failed. The family ended up so poor that Crystal had to pawn her nugget necklace. The money was used to buy tickets for the family's boat trip back to Juneau. Because Crystal had so seldom attended regular classes, sixteen-year old Crystal enrolled in school in Juneau as a fifth grader. Monte graduated in 1903 and Crystal in 1905. Crystal was the only member of the second high school class to graduate in her beloved territory of Alaska. {rancher note: Alaska was a District until 1915 when it was made a Territory} Monte at some point wrote the following poem while in Juneau: "Alaska, My Alaska" (Tune - Maryland, My Maryland) Oh Land of gold I sing of thee, Alaska, My Alaska. Thy snow capped peaks I love to See, - Alaska, My Alaska. >From Arctic ocean's frozen shore, To Baronof of Russian Lore Thy mighty rivers, I adore Alaska, My Alaska. In 67 by Seward's might Alaska, My Alaska Thy imost wealth was brought to light, - Alaska, My Alaska. Tho slow thy growth thru many a year- Thy motto has been Persevere, Thy fame is sung both far and near, Alaska, My Alaska. Oh! May thy future shine most dear, - Alaska, My Alaska. And in the hearts of men grow dear Alaska, My Alaska. Henceforth, Oh land of ice and snow, - The wealth from out Thy hills shall flow - And cast o'er all a radiant glow Alaska, My Alaska. (Composed by Monte Snow, Class of 1903, Juneau High School) Crystal became a professional singer and later a teacher. She married Dr. Jenne, a dentist, and raised three children in Juneau. She served two terms in the territorial house, only the second woman ever to do so, and she was Juneau's postmistress. Crystal Snow Jenne died in Juneau at the age of eight-four in 1968. Her life encompassed the changing of Alaska from an unexplored wilderness to the forty-ninth state in the union, a remarkable era. In Pierre Berten's The Klondike Fever pages 442 and 443 we hear of Monte Snow one more time. "Klondike legends die hard . I call your attention to an incident that took place at a Sourdough Convention on the Pacific coast some years ago, and which featured Mike Mahoney, the hero of Merrill Denison's book Klondike Mike. For years, Mahoney, (who is popularly supposed to have carried a piano over the Chilkoot Pass) used to entertain at various gatherings by reciting Service's "The Shooting of Dan McGrew." The recital was enhanced by the fact that Mahoney claimed to have witnessed the incident and could, on request, give a glowing and detailed eyewitness account of it. When Mahoney's talent were finally pressed into service by the Sourdough association, one member, Monte Snow, decided that he had had enough. Snow had far more right to the name "sourdough" than any others in the banquet hall that evening. His father, George Snow the entrepreneur, had taken him over the Chilkoot when Monte was still a boy. He had been brought up in Circle City before the Klondike strike and had reached Dawson early in 1897. He knew very well that there never had been a Dan McGrew in Dawson or a Malamute Saloon, and he determined to expose Mahoney. Before "Klondike Mike" could rise to speak, Snow was on his feet to announce in ringing tones that the featured guest of the evening was a charlatan making stories up out of whole cloth. But, to his dismay, the assemblage of old-timers shouted Snow down and then gave Mike Mahoney the greatest ovation of his career. They did not really want to hear the truth." Any help on this family would be appreciated. Jeanne rancher@alaska.net