One of the more impressive portions of the whole Klondike Gold Rush story is the Chilkoot Pass.
In order to get to Dawson City you had to come up the Inside Passage, by boat, from Seattle, to Skagway. then you had to come over the pass to Lake Lindeman and Lake Bennett. So Karen and I basically drove that route in reverse. The pass is around 3500 feet. Before that pass is an astounding section of high alpine rocks, ribbon lakes which are beautiful to behold. Even at the end of September it is cold here. The pass coming down to Skagway is steep and winding.
But to get to this point, you had to go over the Chilkoot Pass. There was a wagon trail from the Skagway area but 2 river crossings, a canyon and some gulches. Eventually about 3/4 mile short of the summit, at 3000 feet elevation, you got to the Scales. Here there were 2 routes, but both were covered with large rocky boulders and difficult to navigate in the summer, so most prospectors went in the winter. Think howling winds, icy conditions and deep snow. Eventually by 1898 there was a tramway erected to haul supplies up.
The Canadian Mounties required that a prospector bring sufficient supplies for a year. That was estimated at 500lbs of goods, so you would have to go up and down these steep sections a few times to get all the supplies up. Then they all waited at the lakes, building boats, on the other side until the ice broke up. In May of 1898 the ice didn’t break until 5/29. From the National Park Service: “Before the day was over, 800 craft had cast off for Dawson City. Within 48 hours both Lakes Bennett and Lindeman were clear of ice, and the entire flotilla of over 7000 boats was in motion”
https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/historyculture/historic-chilkoot-trail.htm
Beginning in 1898 they started building a railroad up the White Pass and the Chilkoot Pass was no longer preferred (no surprise). There was even a toll road that was built.
They still run the narrow gauge railroad today, all the way to Carcross.
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