2016 Spring

From Skagway we drive up the Klondike Highway (Alaska Route 98, Yukon Highway 2) that parallels the narrow mountainous trail once used by prospectors with their horses and mules. In Fraser, British Columbia, visitors can board the historic White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. Just under a two-hour ride, the train with old-style passenger cars—one from 1883—chugs through mountain passes to Skagway and back. The elevation ranges from 2,865 feet and drops to sea level in Skagway, passing along the Coast Mountains and the Tongass National Forest. The 440-mile drive from Skagway to Dawson City— without breaks—is about 10 hours. We stop in the small town of Carcross, once known as CaribouCrossing because of the herds that passed through the land bridge skirting two lakes. Worth checking out is the Carcross Dunes and Desert, a sandy patch with hiking trails and rare plants formed from leftover silt deposits from the last ice age. Riverside Whitehorse, Yukon’s largest city and capital, was once a gold rush campground. In the center of town, a statue of a prospector and the 1900 Old Log Church Museum pay tribute to those who arrived by boat to find their fortunes in the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” But the big attraction here is the S.S. Klondike, the largest sternwheeler that ever chugged along the Upper Yukon River betweenWhitehorse and Dawson City. Built in 1929,

Dawson City street scenes include century old buildings.

One street is known as the “Writers’ Block” with two simple log cabins where writers Jack London and Robert Service once lived. Their novels and poetry capture the lifestyle of this gold rush frontier. London, for example, penned The Call of the Wild , whose central character is a dog in a land where sled dogs were in high demand for hauling supplies up narrow mountain trails. In the evening, I join a walking tour of Dawson City’s century-old buildings. Appropriately titled “Strange Things Done in the Midnight Sun,” the tour highlights the risqué and dangerous lifestyle in the Klondike. Stops include a brothel closed as late as the 1960s and the town morgue, where the mortician dug graves before the ground froze in winter. Our tour guide offered that gold fever would often get the best of people. “It’s just wanting more—going up to the hills where it’s seemingly endless, so the more you get, the more you want,” says tour guide Justin Apperley. “It drives people crazy. They were ripping up sidewalks to pan the grounds underneath. But we’re all a little bit out of our minds up here,” he concludes, “aren’t we?”

The SS Klondike Sternwheeler in Whitehorse provides relaxing trips.

the paddlewheel once hauled ore but was later refitted as a cargo and passenger vessel. It’s now a tourist attraction on the river’s edge. On the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers, Dawson City is brimming with gold rush history, and its grid of dirt streets are lined with many century-old buildings. Once booming with saloons, brothels, and gambling halls, modern day Dawson City reminisces its glory days with garter-wearing showgirls at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s and tours of the old buildings. And there’s the macabre “Sourtoe Cocktail” tradition at a downtown hotel, where the lips must touch a human toe in the drink when downing shots.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Alaska Tourism : travelalaska.com Yukon Tourism : travelyukon.com

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