White Pass & Yukon Route

The Klondike stampeders climbing the Chilkoot and White Pass trails on foot in 1897 and 1898 made the case for a railway, and construction began in 1898: one hundred and ten miles of narrow gauge from Skagway over the pass, blasted through granite with black powder, built in twenty-six months by an estimated thirty-five thousand men over the period, of whom thirty-five died. It climbs about eight hundred and seventy metres in the first thirty-two kilometres. Ore traffic ended in 1982 and the line reopened for passengers in 1988. It is designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark alongside the Panama Canal and the Eiffel Tower.

History

The Klondike stampede of 1897 sent prospectors over the White Pass and the Chilkoot Pass, each required to bring about a ton of supplies, and of the 32 railway proposals the government received that year, the line financed by British investors through Close Brothers and built by Michael James Heney was the one that came to be. Construction began in May 1898, the first train in Alaska ran 4 miles out of Skagway on 21 July 1898, the line reached the 2,885-foot summit of the White Pass by mid-February 1899 and Bennett on 6 July 1899, and the last spike was driven on 29 July 1900, with service starting on 1 August (Wikipedia, White Pass and Yukon Route).

Highlights

• The pass climb - 870 metres of gain in the first thirty-two kilometres.
• The blasted cuts - granite worked with black powder in 1898 and 1899.
• The trestles and tunnels - wooden trestles and bores on the mountainside.
• The stampede context - the trails the railway was built to replace.

When to go

May to September; the railway operates seasonally and closes in winter. Trains connect with cruise ships at Skagway, so sailing days are the busiest. Passports are needed for the border.

Before you go

Most departures are from Skagway in Alaska, so a passport and border crossing are involved. Cruise ship days fill the trains. The season is short.

Nearby

Carcross is the Yukon terminus; Skagway is on the Alaskan side.

Key facts