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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
The pleasant bay and river that flows into it, on Marsh Lake is named for a member of Britain's Royal Navy, Francis McClintock, who solved the mystery of the missing Franklin expedition.
The greatest Arctic expedition of all time…
Read more
Yukon history owes a lot to Harry C. Barley, a man most people have probably never heard of. Like other photographers who made their living when the Yukon was young, Barley toiled in the shadows of greatness. In this case,…
Read more
