Sourdough Starter Dates to Gold Rush Days

Ione Christensen, an 84-year-old baker (and former Senator) in the Yukon, is using a sourdough starter that her great-grandfather carried over the Chilkoot Pass on his way to Dawson City during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Now 120 years old, the venerable sourdough is continuing to attract a lot of attention.

CBC’s The Doc Project did an article and podcast about the iconic Yukon sourdough. That piece caught the attention of Karl De Smedt — Earth’s sourdough librarian. De Smedt collects samples of sourdough from around the world and studies them. The samples are then stored in the refrigerated Puratos Sourdough Library in eastern Belgium for the future. Excited to hear of the historical specimen, De Smedt and a documentary crew travelled to the Yukon to meet Christensen (who cooked her Belgian guests sourdough waffles) and arrange for a sample of the starter to be shipped to Europe and stored in the Library. A sample will also be sent to  a university in Italy, where the micro-organisms living in the bread will be analyzed and studied.

> Read more about Christensen’s sourdough starter going to the Sourdough Library

The same sourdough starter was in Christensen’s household when she was growing up in Fort Selkirk, Yukon, where her father was an RCMP officer. Christensen’s mother used it regularly to make bread and flapjacks. Sourdough has a special place in Yukon history, and was a staple for many of those who flocked to the region during the Klondike Gold Rush. The nickname “sourdough” still applies to anyone who manages to survive a Yukon winter.

During her year of eating locally, Suzanne even managed to produce her own sourdough starter using only local ingredients. Perhaps this will be the start of its own new centuries-old tradition.