Atlin

Atlin sits in the far northwest corner of British Columbia, and the only road to it comes from Whitehorse in the Yukon, which is a fair summary of how remote it is. Gold was found in 1898 and thousands arrived; a few hundred people live there now. Atlin Lake is the largest natural lake in the province, deep and glacier-fed, with the Llewellyn Glacier at its southern end in Atlin Provincial Park. The Tarahne, a passenger boat launched in 1917, sits restored on the shore. The setting drew painters, and the light and mountains gave the village a reputation among artists that it keeps.

History

The Taku River Tlingit have long used the lake, whose name comes from their words for big body of water, and the first European to see it is thought to have been Michael Byrne of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1867. Frederick Miller and Kenneth McLaren staked claims on Pine Creek in 1898, starting one of the richest offshoots of the Klondike rush, with some 5,000 people here by the end of 1899; in the 1920s Atlin drew tourists by boat and lake steamer as the Switzerland of the North, and the road from the Yukon was built only in 1949 (Wikipedia, Atlin, British Columbia).

Highlights

• Atlin Lake - the largest natural lake in British Columbia, glacier-fed.
• The MV Tarahne - a 1917 lake steamer restored on the foreshore.
• The gold rush village - wooden buildings from the 1898 boom.
• The Llewellyn Glacier - ice at the lake's southern end in the park.

When to go

June to September; winter is severe and services shut. The road from Whitehorse is gravel in sections. Northern light in June means almost no darkness.

Before you go

Access is only through the Yukon, which surprises people planning from within BC. Services are minimal with limited fuel and accommodation. Winter is long and most of the village closes.

Nearby

Whitehorse lies north in the Yukon; the Alaska Highway runs past it.

Key facts