On January 3rd, 1959, Alaska officially became the 49th state in the Union. Like the continuing quest for Yukon autonomy, the road to Alaskan statehood had been long and winding. The United States bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867…
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I’ve often thought that Whitehorse is such a proud name for the Yukon ’s capital city. The name has a ring about it and tells a story too. A story about the nearby Whitehorse rapids whose waters once churned and…
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Railways have a way of making - or breaking - a community. Such was the case for the boom and bust town of Dyea, near Skagway. This summer, I stood at headwaters of the Taiya Inlet where Dyea once stood…
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Are we there yet? The Klondike gold seekers who left the west coast and sailed the inside passage to Alaska could be forgiven for uttering that famous childhood phase. The journey to the goldfields began with a scenic boat ride…
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Frank Watson was among about 1500 people who attempted to reach the Klondike via the almost impossible route from Edmonton. When he arrived in the Upper Liard River area in the spring of 1898 Watson had lost all hope of…
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Many schemes came to not much during the Klondike gold rush. Bunco artists, whose only goal was to fleece the hard-working miner, dreamed up many of them. One wacky scheme was the product of the United States government. It failed,…
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It had all the makings of a slapstick movie comedy. Had there been video cameras back in the summer of 1900, the last-spike ceremony for the White Pass railway would be a YouTube winner. The railway between Skagway and Whitehorse…
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It’s hard to imagine a railway, anywhere in the world, that was shorter than the one that ran between Graham Inlet on Taku Arm and Atlin Lake. It was just two and half miles long, and it was called the…
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Anyone fortunate enough to travel the length of Lake Bennett from Carcross is travelling a voyage of incredible history. Down this 35-mile long lake came cheechakos hell-bent for the gold fields. Their boats were crude crafts made from…
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The first mayor, of the newly incorporated city of Skagway, was a Canadian. John Hislop was born in Galt, Ontario, and graduated from McGill University in Montreal as a civil engineer. At one time he taught highschool in Galt.
In…
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There may have been 300 steamboats in the Yukon in the heyday of river transport. Few remain today and none ply the river anymore. But in 1898, river was the only way to get from the coast to the Klondike…
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The SS Islander left Skagway at 7:30 p.m. on August 14th, 1901. Nothing unusual there. This impressive CPR vessel had been built in Scottish shipyards back in 1888 specifically for the inside passage run. At 240 feet, it was longer…
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The Yukon has always been a land of opportunity for visionaries. And because of them, residents of Whitehorse saw the light when on July 2, 1901 the newly formed Yukon Electric Company was awarded a franchise to provide power. It…
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For years after the gold rush, the Yukon was a busy place both in summer and winter. River boats were the lifeline from Whitehorse to Dawson. But they were of no use in the winter.
So in 1902, the Yukon…
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Imagine a railway running from Dawson City , along the Klondike river and up the Bonanza Creek valley to Grand Forks and beyond. Sounds like a tourist train dream these days. Back in the early 1900s it was a…
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