Holiday on Ice # 3: The Road to Eldorado

Skagway today is a little village of some 800 year round residents, which expands into a larger city of several thousand every year during the cruise ship season.  On days when multiple ships are in port, it seems incredibly busy -- yet in the years 1897-99, during the Klondike Gold Rush, Skagway at times was home to as many as fifteen thousand people at once.

So was the neighbouring community of Dyea, a short distance away.  Both towns exploded into being because they served as ports of entry to the two most popular trails to the Klondike gold fields, the Chilkoot and White Passes.  Yet Skagway has survived to the present day, while Dyea has all but vanished, with only a few bits and pieces of ruins to mark its site.

The difference is the railway.  It was begun to simplify the business of each stampeder hauling a ton of food and supplies across the pass, and was actually finished all the way to Whitehorse (110 miles/178 kilometres) in the Yukon Territory in 26 months, a startling achievement by any standard.  The choice of Whitehorse as northern terminal allowed rail users to bypass all the rapids in the upper reaches of the Yukon River.

The railway stayed in business for years by hauling out the products of various mines in different areas of the Yukon.  As the mining businesses slowly dried up the line closed, only to be revived as a tourist route by the advent of cruise ships.  The White Pass and Yukon Route now operates as a tourist line in the summer cruise season as far north as Carcross (this curious name is a shortened form of "Caribou Crossing").

The map shows the area clearly.  From the shores of Lynn Canal, the long fjord of the Pacific Ocean, to Bennett Lake is a mere matter of 40 miles (63 kilometres) of track, and the original trail was even shorter.  Yet in that short distance, you climb up and over the coastal mountains into Canada and down into the interior watershed of the Yukon River.  From Bennett, the stampeders completed their journey to the Klondike in home-made boats and rafts.  Before long, these were supplemented by Mississippi-style paddlewheel steamboats, and the paddlewheel veterans remained active on the river until the coming of the Alaska Highway, which passes through Whitehorse.

So my day here had two parts: first, a ride on the historic narrow-gauge railway up to the White Pass Summit, and second, a walk into town for a few historic and natural sights.

To start off, here's an aerial view taken from the internet, showing the harbour, town, and the valley stretching inland towards the White Pass at top left.  This gives an excellent idea of the rugged, inhospitable landscape which both stampeders and railway builders had to conquer.

By Christopher Michel from San Francisco, USA - skagway, Alaska

Uploaded by Aconcagua, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7306934

One of the key features of Skagway is that every dock has a railway track. These tracks allow the tour trains of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway to start right beside the cruise ships, saving all the hassles of coming and going from the original station in town.

And the trains are impressive indeed! A consist of anything up to 20 coaches is headed up by two stout diesel locomotives. The coaches are a mix of historic cars and replicas of same. The car I rode in had been fitted with thermal windows, modern washroom, and energy-efficient stove, and the bench seats were upholstered and padded. Otherwise, it looked vintage in every respect, not least the narrow outdoor platforms at either end. These platforms are very popular with sightseeing photographers and videographers.

Our train was very nearly full, and yet was only one of two trains offered today to the passengers of this one ship. As soon as we pulled away from the dock, the track veered across the waterfront to Pullen Creek on the east side of town and followed that stream up the valley. After passing the railway’s sizable modern maintenance facility, the track began the steady climb to the summit, a climb which gets very steep indeed in some places. The steepest stretch of the line is at a grade of 3.9%, which is a stiff challenge for a conventional train using only standard rail traction

We had a very comfortable ride up and over the pass and down the British Columbia side to a point just shy of the station at Fraser (Canada Customs control point). Then our train went around a neat turning loop and headed back to Skagway. In this way, everyone got a ride on the scenic side, and a ride on the side next to the mountain wall, without anyone having to move. Smooth way to handle it!

So here’s my photo gallery of the train trip. Apologies for some slightly blurry pictures, it’s the usual problem of shooting through windows.

The inside of the train coach, and one of its occupants:

Turbulent waters of the Skagway River.  Farther upstream there are Category 6 rapids.

Looking up across the valley at a high curve and trestle....

... and looking back down from that curve 10 minutes later at the next tour train behind us.

A few minutes after we climbed into the clouds, the old cantilever bridge across Dead Horse Gulch loomed out of the mist.

It was the highest bridge of its type in the world when built in 1899, and was one of the main reasons why the railway was designated an international civil engineering landmark.

The summit plateau of the White Pass is a barren waste of tundra where lichens, mosses, and a few stunted evergreens scrabble for survival.  These miniature trees could easily be over a century old.

After we went through the turnaround and headed back down the mountain (much faster), we got the two most spectacular views of the trip:  the view ahead of the train rounding the high curve above the valley...

and the view down from the heights to Skagway harbour -- our ship is the one on the right.

Back at the dock after a trip of nearly 4½ hours, I went aboard to get some lunch and then headed back out (now in brilliant sunshine) to walk in the historic district.

The contents of the stores may be modern but the buildings are authentic, wooden, and well over a century old now.  So is the sign on the mountainside above the liquor store.

Note the alternate spelling of Skaguay on the news depot.  There were other spellings in the stampede days too.

I then walked over to Pullen Creek. It got its name from a hard-working young widow who came north in 1898 to raise money to support her boys, landed in Skagway, and worked her way up from hired laundress to become owner of her own hotel, Pullen House. The hotel remained open for as long as Harriet Pullen was alive, and stood right by the creek which now also bears her name.

Unlike the Skagway River, much broader and laden with glacial silt, Pullen Creek is a clear-water stream and so a natural breeding ground for salmon. The spawning season is almost over now, and the fish still struggling in the creek to get upstream look like they aren’t going to make it. There are a number of dead fish lying on the gravel shoals, and the living ones are showing little sign of energy, barely coping with the fairly easy current. It seems a cruel fate, but this is plainly survival of the fittest in action, as nature intended. The strongest fish survive, reach the spawning grounds and reproduce, and thus the strong strains of the species are continued and increased.

By this time, Skagway had become positively sunny (blue clouds between grey ones) and from the dock I was able to get a fine view of the ship with the mountains across Lynn Canal fjord forming the backdrop.