Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a novelist all my adult life. My first three books are novels about teenagers, regarded as pioneers in the genre of Young Adult fiction. My inspiration has always been real people, events, and places. Animals, especially dogs have always been part of my life. I turned to adult fiction because I felt the need to write about the full cast of life. City Wolves was inspired, if not driven by my first Malamute, Yukon Sally. With the research she led me to do into wolves, sled dogs, the history of women veterinarians, the real people who were part of the Klondike Gold Rush, I found some marvellous biographies, histories, biological studies, and poetry.


I wrote

City Wolves: Historical Fiction

By Dorris Heffron,

Book cover of City Wolves: Historical Fiction

What is my book about?

City Wolves is the story of a first woman veterinarian who became the ‘Dog Doctor of Halifax’ in Canada in…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Frontier Spirit: The Brave Women of the Klondike

Dorris Heffron Why did I love this book?

Author Jennifer Duncan an adventurous person herself, went to the Yukon a hundred years after the Klondike Gold Rush and lived in Dawson City, now a picturesque historical heritage town where the saloons and dancehalls replay the raucous social times of the 1890s gold rush.

Her book gives a real feel for the place and the remarkable women who grappled their way across the continent and north to the land of the midnight sun. They turned themselves into smart businesswomen and made fortunes without digging for gold.

A diligent researcher, Duncan casts a new light on who first discovered gold in the Klondike. Not the American Carmack but his Indigenous wife, Kate who let him take the credit for the discovery. He later denied her as his wife and abandoned her.   

By Jennifer Duncan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Frontier Spirit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The brave women of the klondike.


Book cover of Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899

Dorris Heffron Why did I love this book?

Pierre Berton, a great popular history writer with a big research team, captures the full scope of the Klondike Gold Rush, from its exciting beginning to its bedraggled ending.

A kind of swashbuckling character himself, he grew up in Dawson City then made his way as a talented writer and broadcaster to fame and fortune across Canada. He astutely describes the wide range of characters who rushed to the Klondike from various countries making history in dramatic and sometimes comic ways.

This informative history book is a delight to read. 

By Pierre Berton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Klondike as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With the building of the railroad and the settlement of the plains, the North West was opening up. The Klondike stampede was a wild interlude in the epic story of western development, and here are its dramatic tales of hardship, heroism, and villainy. We meet Soapy Smith, dictator of Skagway; Swiftwater Bill Gates, who bathed in champagne; Silent Sam Bonnifield, who lost and won back a hotel in a poker game; and Roddy Connors, who danced away a fortune at a dollar a dance. We meet dance-hall queens, paupers turned millionaires, missionaries and entrepreneurs, and legendary Mounties such as Sam…


Book cover of Wolves of the Yukon

Dorris Heffron Why did I love this book?

I did a lot of research before writing my book. I’ve always written realistic fiction inspired by real people and places. But this novel was driven by a dog, my first Alaskan Malamute whom I called Yukon Sally.

I’ve always had a dog, some kind of Collie from a farm or an animal shelter. After my youngest daughter flew off to university I thought we could spring for a purebred and chose a Malamute because they come from Arctic wolves.

Intrigued by Yukon’s wolf-like traits I researched wolves then the Malamute breed and took Yukon Sally to the Yukon to study sled dogs and the background of the Klondike Gold Rush which was the glory days of the Malamute sled dogs.

While there, I discovered Bob Hayes’ book and learned some more important facts about wolves. They do not need to be culled. Read it and see why. 

By Bob Hayes,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wolves of the Yukon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bob Hayes researched wolves in the Yukon for 20 years. Using a combination of narratives and easy-to-follow essays, his book follows the history of the Yukon wolf from the end of the Ice Age to present day. Bob Hayes also explores his original research into wolf relations to moose, caribou, mountain sheep, ravens, grizzly bears and human hunters. The last chapter tells why broad-scale killing of wolves to increase game should end. Finally, Wolves of the Yukon raises profound arguments about how to value and conserve the largest remaining tract of complete wilderness on the continent.


Book cover of Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake

Dorris Heffron Why did I love this book?

My main focus in my book is people, Meg Wilkinson the first female veterinarian and other adventurers and pioneers who wound up on the Klondike Gold Rush.

Though the wolf like nature of humans and the human nature of wolves permeates the whole story. I also had to research veterinary history but I found no particular book on that to recommend.

Pauline Johnson did not go to the Klondike but she is a very influential figure of the times and in the life of Meg. I’m a fan of Charlotte Gray’s biographies and I think her biography of Pauline Johnson is the best. 

By Charlotte Gray,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Flint & Feather as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A graceful biography that was a #1 national bestseller, Flint & Feather confirms Charlotte Gray’s position as a master biographer, a writer with a rare gift for transforming a historical character into a living, breathing woman who immediately captures our imagination.

In Flint & Feather, Charlotte Gray explores the life of this nineteenth-century daughter of a Mohawk chief and English gentlewoman, creating a fascinating portrait of a young woman equally at home on the stage in her “Indian” costume and in the salons of the rich and powerful. Uncovering Pauline Johnson’s complex and dramatic personality, Flint & Feather is studded…


Book cover of The Spell of the Yukon

Dorris Heffron Why did I love this book?

Robert Service became a bank clerk in the Klondike Gold Rush. But that was to support his life as a poet.

At one time he lived and wrote in a log cabin now standing across the road from the house in Dawson City where Pierre Berton grew up. Pierre Berton was born long after Robert Service, but the poems of Robert Service have been popular for generations.

They portray the life and characters of the Yukon around the time of the gold rush. Pierre Berton gave many public performances reciting the whole of Service’s The Shooting of Dan McGrew. No one could do it better. I joined others rising to our feet in applause and whistles.

There is a Malamute Saloon named after a line in that famous poem which I took my Yukon Sally to in Dawson City. My photo of that brings tears to my eyes.    

By Robert Service,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spell of the Yukon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Robert Service wrote in the golden years of the Klondike -- of the rough and ready men, and women just as tough. No-one in Robert's world (real or imagined) minced words or had any self-consciousness about them. It was live and let live and sometimes kill or be killed. Reading his poems transports us back to that frozen place in nature when it was literally every man and every woman for him/herself, yet Robert conveys to us not only a sensitivity (in his poem extolling the simple light switch -- something quite novel in those times, especially in the Klondike),…


Explore my book 😀

City Wolves: Historical Fiction

By Dorris Heffron,

Book cover of City Wolves: Historical Fiction

What is my book about?

City Wolves is the story of a first woman veterinarian who became the ‘Dog Doctor of Halifax’ in Canada in the late 1880s. After the tragedy of her husband’s death in Boston, she winds up in Dawson City in the midst of the Klondike Gold Rush, tending sled dogs and Kings of the Klondike, along with women who ran the show.

At the heart of the novel is the ancient story of a Malamute speaking Inuit couple who stole wolf pups and eventually produced the dogs now known as Alaskan Malamutes. City Wolves profoundly reveals the wolf like nature of people and the human nature of wolves.

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By Dean Jobb,

Book cover of A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue

Dean Jobb Author Of The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author True crime author Journalist Professor Reader

Dean's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

The Great Gatsby meets Catch Me If You Can and the hit Netflix series Lupin in this rollicking true tale of an audacious gentleman crook.

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A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue

By Dean Jobb,

What is this book about?

This captivating Jazz Age true crime tale about "the greatest jewel thief who ever lived" (Life Magazine), tells the incredible story of Arthur Barry, who charmed celebrities and millionaires while simultaneously planning and executing the most audacious and lucrative heists of the 1920s.

A skilled con artist and one of the most successful burglars in history, Arthur Barry was adept at slipping in and out of bedrooms undetected, even when his victims slept only inches away. He became a folk hero, a gentleman bandit touted in the press as the "Prince of Thieves" and an "Aristocrat of Crime." Think Cary…


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Interested in the Klondike Gold Rush, the gold rush, and Alaska?

The Gold Rush 8 books
Alaska 110 books