White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad

In 1897 news of gold on the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon set off one of history's last great gold rushes. Tens of thousands of hopefuls sailed north up the Inside Passage and landed at Skagway and its neighbor Dyea, because from here two trails, the White Pass and the Chilkoot, crossed the Coast Mountains toward the goldfields.

Both trails were ordeals. The White Pass earned the name Dead Horse Trail after some three thousand pack animals were driven to death on its steep, muddy grades. Canadian authorities required each person to bring a literal ton of supplies to survive the year, so stampeders had to relay their outfits over the pass in load after load, a heartbreaking, months-long grind.

This coast is the homeland of the Tlingit, and the Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingit had long controlled the mountain trade routes to the interior. The gold rush swept over that world in a matter of months, and the Tlingit remain part of this region today.

Skagway itself became a lawless boomtown, briefly ruled by the con man Jefferson Randolph Soapy Smith and his gang, until a shootout in 1898 left both Smith and the townsman Frank Reid dead. Within a few years the easy gold was gone and the crowds moved on, but the railroad they helped inspire remained.

Even as the stampede raged, backers saw that a railroad over the pass would beat any trail. Construction began in 1898, and crews numbering in the thousands attacked the mountains with hand tools, black powder, and later dynamite, in fog, snow, and cold.

The engineering was audacious: a narrow, three-foot gauge that could bend around tight mountain curves, cliffside cuts carved into sheer granite, tunnels bored through the rock, and trestles flung across deep gorges. The line reached the White Pass summit in early 1899 and pushed on to Whitehorse in the Yukon by 1900, a remarkably fast completion for such terrain.

The White Pass and Yukon Route is honored as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, sharing that distinction with the Panama Canal and the Eiffel Tower. Much of the original grade, tunnels, and steel are still what the train rides on today.

From the depot on Skagway's main street, the train sets out along the fjord and begins to climb, and the drama builds quickly. It threads through Tunnel Mountain, crosses high above Glacier Gorge, passes Bridal Veil Falls and the towering face of the mountains, and offers a glimpse of the old Trail of '98 worn into the rock, where you can still make out the path the stampeders trudged.

Vintage and vintage-style parlor cars, some with open platforms, carry a mix of narration and simple gawking as the country unfolds. Near the summit the trees give way to a stark alpine world of rock, snow, and small tarns, and the train reaches White Pass at the U.S. and Canada border before starting back down.

Different excursions run different distances, some turning around at the summit, others continuing deeper toward Fraser, British Columbia, or connecting toward the Yukon. Because portions cross into Canada, some trips have passport requirements worth checking when you book.

Summer is the operating season and the busiest, when Skagway fills with visitors and the railway runs its fullest schedule. Long daylight and (relatively) settled weather make it the reliable time to ride, and popular departures sell out.

Late spring and early fall bookend the season with fewer crowds and a chance of fresh snow high on the pass, which can make the alpine stretch especially striking. Weather at the summit is unpredictable in any month.

In winter the passenger excursions generally pause, and Skagway settles into a quiet, small-town off-season, though the rail line and its history remain the heart of what the town is about.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.