Sarah Ann "Sadie" Alexander Stringer was an Anglican Church missionary who lived a most unconventional life. Born in 1869, the Ontario native married Isaac Stringer in 1896. They moved to Herschel Island that summer, leaving for Fort McPherson in autumn for the birth of their first child. In 1897 the Stringers settled at isolated Herschel Island for four years.
In 1901 the family sailed aboard a whaler to San Francisco. Walking down the gangplank, Mrs. Stringer felt other women's stares, then realized her clothes were five years out of style! The family returned to White Horse for 1903-1905. When Mr. Stringer became the second Bishop of the Yukon in 1905, they moved to Dawson.
Mrs. Stringer did not observe much of the strict social and racial code of her time. Friend Laura Berton wrote that she treated every person with equal respect. In her book I Married the Klondike, Berton recalled the flutter Mrs. Stringer provoked at a church Women's Auxiliary tea. She seated an Indian woman from Mayo, the wife of Julius Kendi, at her right, thinking the woman might be nervous unless near someone she knew. Mrs. Stringer thought nothing of this, but other ladies were terribly upset that Mrs. Kendi had been given the place of honour.
Mrs. Stringer accompanied her husband on many trips, both by dog team and on foot, especially in later years when she worried about his health. She completed her memoirs before her 1955 death in Vancouver.
