From gold to tourists, Yukon’s capital gleams as the gateway to adventure.
BY TOBY SALTZMAN
In the heady gold-rush days of 1896, Whitehorse was labelled "a place to wash your socks." It was just a stop en route to the promises of Skagway or Dawson City. For the thousands of prospectors, entrepreneurs and adventurers who survived the treacherous rapids of Miles Canyon that "foamed like the mane of a wild white horse," the town meant a drink of quick cheer, a dancehall girl and a place to hearken dreams of gold.
Legends of survival, foolhardiness and horror were common in the community that suddenly sprouted from 500 stragglers to some 25,000 people: of men drowned in Miles Canyon, just 10 kilometres shy of safety; of men who struck gold; of cheechakos (Yukon greenhorns) who became sourdoughs (Yukon old-timers) by watching the river freeze in the fall and melt in the spring.
When the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway was constructed in 1900, Whitehorse blossomed as the Yukon’s major transportation hub, strategically located at the railway terminus and at the head of navigable water on the Yukon River.
The narrow-gauge WP&YR carried passengers and freight from the Alaska seaport of Skagway inland to Whitehorse year round, traversing deep gorges and dense forests. From Whitehorse north to the Klondike, people travelled the Yukon River by sternwheelers in summer. In winter, they trekked the Overland Trail in horse-drawn sleighs, huddled beneath bison skins, grabbing warmth in cabins along the way.
When the gold rush washed out, so did many Whitehorse residents. By 1929, the western provinces and Alaska needed a northern road to counter their isolation. It came after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and committed Americans to the Second World War: the United States needed an Alaskan supply route to defend its west coast. So Whitehorse, with solidly established supply lines, became the northern centre for U.S. army projects. Suddenly, it faced a second rush, this time the Army Corps of Engineers troops who were tasked with building the Alaska Highway. After construction, the population once more dwindled. But as capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse was never a backwater again.
Today, Whitehorse faces a new rush: that of visitors seeking adventure in the clean, fresh air and splendid scenery.
Spreading from the historic Main Street strip and the old WP&YR station at the river’s edge, Whitehorse is easily explored on foot with a guidebook from the Yukon Historical and Museums Association. What little Klondike-era architecture remains is worth seeing. Among the quaint survivors are small wood-frame houses (including author Pierre Berton’s family home) on Wood Street and some log "skyscrapers" on Lambert Street. At the Old Log Church Museum, film fans can hear the story of “the bishop who ate his boots” that inspired a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 classic, The Gold Rush. Down by the Yukon River is the SS Klondike, the Yukon’s only authentically restored sternwheeler, its gleaming woodwork a testimony to the craftsmanship of the period.
As in bygone days, Whitehorse – though today it is the capital of the territory – exudes the warm-hearted charm of a small town hovering on the cusp of wilderness, and its true appeal still lies in its status as a steppingstone to adventures in nature.
For first-timers, the Yukon Visitor Centre downtown is a convenient source for details on current attractions, events and contacts for daytrips. Visiting the museums will enhance your historical perspective. The MacBride Museum brings to life tales of the gold-rush days with its exhibits of animals, the North-West Mounted Police and the cabin of Sam McGee, who was immortalized in the famous Robert William Service poem. The Beringia Interpretive Centre focuses on Beringia, the prehistoric, unglaciated bridge of land linking Siberia to Alaska that vanished during the last Ice Age. It sheds light on the woolly mammoth, steppe bison, giant beaver and scimitar cat as well as North America’s first humans, ancestors of the First Nations people who settled the Yukon some 24,000 years ago.
About 10 kilometres from Whitehorse is Miles Canyon. Placid since the White Horse Rapids disappeared when the river was dammed for hydropower, the area invites easy hikes, trail riding and boating.
Upriver, the abandoned town of Canyon City is a jumble of beaver-gnawed tree stumps littered with rusty tin cans. A staging point on the stampeders’ route to the Klondike between 1897 and 1900, Canyon City was occupied for only those three short years. But according to Yukon archaeologist Ruth Gotthard, the thin scatter of historic debris at Canyon City overlies traces of an ancient Southern Tutchone Indian fishing camp that once thrived here. Gotthard pointed out the subtle remnants of human history, noting mounds of earth that suggest building outlines and holes where stone tools and bone fragments were discovered, indicating occupation of the site 2,500 years ago. As to the tin cans, she said, they're "highly sensitive time indicators by virtue of their sealing techniques."
"The Yukon is the only place I ever wanted to study," Gotthard said. "In the mid-1990s, a miner found a prehistoric Pleistocene horse pelt that was 26,000 years old, complete with long mane and tails. A surprise, since we thought it had a short mane." Results of recent Canyon City excavations are described in a publication available on a Government of Yukon website, www.yukonheritage.com. In summer, the Yukon Conservation Society conducts walking tours to the site from Miles Canyon, an easy two-kilometre outing that follows trails and the old tramway bed alongside the Yukon River.
The Yukon’s most spectacular attraction is Kluane National Park, about a two-hour drive west of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway. Proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its St. Elias range includes Mount Logan at 5,950 metres, Canada’s highest mountain and one of the world’s largest massifs. Amid the rocky peaks also lie the largest non-polar icefields on earth, a legacy of the last Ice Age. And skirting the ice edge is the greatest diversity of plant and wildlife existing north of 60 degrees. Visitors may spot nimble, curly-horned Dall mountain sheep, peregrine falcons and herds of caribou or moose.
Invariably, hikers return from Kluane with tales of breathtaking descents through alpine tundra to view the massive Donjek Glacier.
True to its Indian meaning, Kluane – “place of many fish" – has an abundance of lake trout, arctic grayling and rainbow trout in its lakes. Fishing from boats is exciting but due to unpredictable high winds, canoeing is discouraged.
In keeping with a wilderness preserve, there are few facilities or roads in Kluane, so everyone is advised to register at the interpretive centre. In this "Land of the Midnight Sun," visitors from around the world flock to revel in the endless daylight of summer and to view the northern lights that stream across the night sky from autumn to spring.
With a host of outdoor tour operators, Whitehorse abounds with year-round adventure. Spring to fall, people go for exhilarating fishing, hiking, canoeing, white-water rafting, hiking and camping excisions. Other popular attractions include Yukon River cruises aboard the MV Schwatka, the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel, the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, the Whitehorse Fish Ladder and the Takhini Hot Springs. For extreme types, Yukon Wild, a consortium of tour operators, offers everything from heli-hiking to camping in a remote yurt, while winter thrills include dogsledding, cross-country skiing and skidooing across the frozen tundra.
A century after the gold rush, Whitehorse remains a steppingstone to the Yukon. But now, savvy adventurers stay awhile before moving on.
source: Canadian Tourism Commision
This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Click here for more information on Whitehorse
BY TOBY SALTZMAN
In the heady gold-rush days of 1896, Whitehorse was labelled "a place to wash your socks." It was just a stop en route to the promises of Skagway or Dawson City. For the thousands of prospectors, entrepreneurs and adventurers who survived the treacherous rapids of Miles Canyon that "foamed like the mane of a wild white horse," the town meant a drink of quick cheer, a dancehall girl and a place to hearken dreams of gold.
Legends of survival, foolhardiness and horror were common in the community that suddenly sprouted from 500 stragglers to some 25,000 people: of men drowned in Miles Canyon, just 10 kilometres shy of safety; of men who struck gold; of cheechakos (Yukon greenhorns) who became sourdoughs (Yukon old-timers) by watching the river freeze in the fall and melt in the spring.
When the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway was constructed in 1900, Whitehorse blossomed as the Yukon’s major transportation hub, strategically located at the railway terminus and at the head of navigable water on the Yukon River.
The narrow-gauge WP&YR carried passengers and freight from the Alaska seaport of Skagway inland to Whitehorse year round, traversing deep gorges and dense forests. From Whitehorse north to the Klondike, people travelled the Yukon River by sternwheelers in summer. In winter, they trekked the Overland Trail in horse-drawn sleighs, huddled beneath bison skins, grabbing warmth in cabins along the way.
When the gold rush washed out, so did many Whitehorse residents. By 1929, the western provinces and Alaska needed a northern road to counter their isolation. It came after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and committed Americans to the Second World War: the United States needed an Alaskan supply route to defend its west coast. So Whitehorse, with solidly established supply lines, became the northern centre for U.S. army projects. Suddenly, it faced a second rush, this time the Army Corps of Engineers troops who were tasked with building the Alaska Highway. After construction, the population once more dwindled. But as capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse was never a backwater again.
Today, Whitehorse faces a new rush: that of visitors seeking adventure in the clean, fresh air and splendid scenery.
Spreading from the historic Main Street strip and the old WP&YR station at the river’s edge, Whitehorse is easily explored on foot with a guidebook from the Yukon Historical and Museums Association. What little Klondike-era architecture remains is worth seeing. Among the quaint survivors are small wood-frame houses (including author Pierre Berton’s family home) on Wood Street and some log "skyscrapers" on Lambert Street. At the Old Log Church Museum, film fans can hear the story of “the bishop who ate his boots” that inspired a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 classic, The Gold Rush. Down by the Yukon River is the SS Klondike, the Yukon’s only authentically restored sternwheeler, its gleaming woodwork a testimony to the craftsmanship of the period.
As in bygone days, Whitehorse – though today it is the capital of the territory – exudes the warm-hearted charm of a small town hovering on the cusp of wilderness, and its true appeal still lies in its status as a steppingstone to adventures in nature.
For first-timers, the Yukon Visitor Centre downtown is a convenient source for details on current attractions, events and contacts for daytrips. Visiting the museums will enhance your historical perspective. The MacBride Museum brings to life tales of the gold-rush days with its exhibits of animals, the North-West Mounted Police and the cabin of Sam McGee, who was immortalized in the famous Robert William Service poem. The Beringia Interpretive Centre focuses on Beringia, the prehistoric, unglaciated bridge of land linking Siberia to Alaska that vanished during the last Ice Age. It sheds light on the woolly mammoth, steppe bison, giant beaver and scimitar cat as well as North America’s first humans, ancestors of the First Nations people who settled the Yukon some 24,000 years ago.
About 10 kilometres from Whitehorse is Miles Canyon. Placid since the White Horse Rapids disappeared when the river was dammed for hydropower, the area invites easy hikes, trail riding and boating.
Upriver, the abandoned town of Canyon City is a jumble of beaver-gnawed tree stumps littered with rusty tin cans. A staging point on the stampeders’ route to the Klondike between 1897 and 1900, Canyon City was occupied for only those three short years. But according to Yukon archaeologist Ruth Gotthard, the thin scatter of historic debris at Canyon City overlies traces of an ancient Southern Tutchone Indian fishing camp that once thrived here. Gotthard pointed out the subtle remnants of human history, noting mounds of earth that suggest building outlines and holes where stone tools and bone fragments were discovered, indicating occupation of the site 2,500 years ago. As to the tin cans, she said, they're "highly sensitive time indicators by virtue of their sealing techniques."
"The Yukon is the only place I ever wanted to study," Gotthard said. "In the mid-1990s, a miner found a prehistoric Pleistocene horse pelt that was 26,000 years old, complete with long mane and tails. A surprise, since we thought it had a short mane." Results of recent Canyon City excavations are described in a publication available on a Government of Yukon website, www.yukonheritage.com. In summer, the Yukon Conservation Society conducts walking tours to the site from Miles Canyon, an easy two-kilometre outing that follows trails and the old tramway bed alongside the Yukon River.
The Yukon’s most spectacular attraction is Kluane National Park, about a two-hour drive west of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway. Proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its St. Elias range includes Mount Logan at 5,950 metres, Canada’s highest mountain and one of the world’s largest massifs. Amid the rocky peaks also lie the largest non-polar icefields on earth, a legacy of the last Ice Age. And skirting the ice edge is the greatest diversity of plant and wildlife existing north of 60 degrees. Visitors may spot nimble, curly-horned Dall mountain sheep, peregrine falcons and herds of caribou or moose.
Invariably, hikers return from Kluane with tales of breathtaking descents through alpine tundra to view the massive Donjek Glacier.
True to its Indian meaning, Kluane – “place of many fish" – has an abundance of lake trout, arctic grayling and rainbow trout in its lakes. Fishing from boats is exciting but due to unpredictable high winds, canoeing is discouraged.
In keeping with a wilderness preserve, there are few facilities or roads in Kluane, so everyone is advised to register at the interpretive centre. In this "Land of the Midnight Sun," visitors from around the world flock to revel in the endless daylight of summer and to view the northern lights that stream across the night sky from autumn to spring.
With a host of outdoor tour operators, Whitehorse abounds with year-round adventure. Spring to fall, people go for exhilarating fishing, hiking, canoeing, white-water rafting, hiking and camping excisions. Other popular attractions include Yukon River cruises aboard the MV Schwatka, the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel, the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, the Whitehorse Fish Ladder and the Takhini Hot Springs. For extreme types, Yukon Wild, a consortium of tour operators, offers everything from heli-hiking to camping in a remote yurt, while winter thrills include dogsledding, cross-country skiing and skidooing across the frozen tundra.
A century after the gold rush, Whitehorse remains a steppingstone to the Yukon. But now, savvy adventurers stay awhile before moving on.
source: Canadian Tourism Commision
This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Click here for more information on Whitehorse
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