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Yukon Nuggets

  • Miles Canyon Prior to the Dam.

  • Freight hustlers standing in front of the Tramway building (river front side) at Canyon City near the entrance to Miles Canyon. Tram cars in the foreground. Date: September 1899. Yukon Archives. H.C. Barley fonds, #4665.

1947 Yukon Nuggets

Miles Canyon

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For many, it's the most spectacular feature of the Yukon river. It is a canyon carved by thousands of centuries of swift-moving water. At one time, it was considered the most dangerous obstacle on the way to the Klondike gold fields. The next time you visit this landscape treasure, consider the future of the Yukon had it not been there.

Miles Canyon is just a few miles up-river from Whitehorse. It's a major tourist attraction for both Yukoners and new visitors to the territory. Yet in 1898, when the massive flotilla of boats carried gold seekers to the Klondike, it was not considered an attraction. Rather, it was the bane of their existence. It was dangerous - almost as bad as the Whitehorse rapids, which lay just below the canyon - a rapid which claimed numerous lives - especially lives of those who did not respect its power.

Miles Canyon was named the Grand Canyon by early-day prospectors. Then, when Lt. Frederick Schwatka of the U.S. army came along, exploring the Yukon River system in 1883, he named the canyon after General Nelson Miles, commander of the department of Columbia, which then took in Alaska.

Had it not been for the presence of Miles Canyon (and the Whitehorse Rapids), riverboats would have been able to travel between Carcross and Dawson City with no problem. As it was, a few small riverboats did run that route, but were forced to stop above the canyon, where a town called Canyon City sprang up. Had it not been for the canyon and the rapids, the White Pass and Yukon Railway would have stopped at Carcross. The company would have built riverboats there instead of a little place on the north side of the Whitehorse Rapids and Miles Canyon - a little place called Whitehorse.


Had it not been for Miles Canyon, Carcross would likely have become the transportation hub leading to the gold fields. The Alaska Highway would likely have gone through Carcross on its way north to Alaska. The American military building that road in the early 40s would not have needed to go through what is now Whitehorse because there would have been no rail or riverboat system based there. The military airfields, built along the route of the highway, would have concluded Carcross, not Whitehorse as a staging point. Cyr's woodlot on the clay bluffs overlooking Whitehorse, would still be just a wood lot, not the Whitehorse International Airport, as it is now.

Because Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids were there, the history of the Yukon was changed dramatically. Undoubtedly, Carcross, and not Whitehorse, would have been the Yukon's capital city today. Then sprawling bedroom communities now attached to Whitehorse would have bloomed down Lake Bennett, over to Crag Lake, up to Lewis Lake and beyond.

 

 

So the next time you visit Miles Canyon, think for a moment about what that beautiful vista meant in shaping the Yukon's future.

 

 

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.

Les McLaughlin

Les McLaughlin

As storyteller, radio man, and music producer, Les proved a passionate preserver of Yukon heritage throughout his life — nowhere more evident than as the author and voice of CKRW’s “Yukon Nuggets,” from its inception until his passing in 2011.