Page 154 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Alaska

152  ALASK A AREA B Y AREA

u Gold Rush Routes

Along the old Gold Rush trail from Skagway, three separate
routes link the port with the interior. The most famous is
the Chilkoot Trail, starting at the site of Dyea and crossing
Chilkoot Pass to Bennett Lake in Canada’s British Columbia.
Hikers can return by the narrow-gauge 1898 White Pass
and Yukon Route Railroad, which runs from Skagway past
vertical cliffs, over old bridges, and through tunnels from
sea level to the 2,865-ft (860-m) high White Pass in just
20 miles (32 km). The third route, the picturesque Klondike
Highway, is a good driving route that passes spectacular
scenery on the opposite side of the Skagway River from Rafting on the Chilkoot River at Dyea
the railway and continues to the Yukon Territory. near Skagway

4 Lindeman
Now a campsite, Lindeman was
a bustling lakeside tent town of
4,000 during the Gold Rush. While
stampeders and their gear were
carried by a steamer and barges
across the lake in the summer,
they had to walk across the
frozen lake in the winter.

3 Chilkoot Pass Crater
After struggling up the 3,525-ft (1,058-m) Chilkoot Pass on Lake
the US-Canada border, hikers can look forward to a down-
hill run all the way to Bennett Lake. During the Gold Rush,
stampeders crossing the border had to stop here to pay
customs duties to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Mount Hoffman
2 Canyon City 6,080 ft
In 1898, Canyon City had 1,500 residents and
24 businesses, but the town had disappeared within
two years. All that is left today is the remains of a
boiler once owned by a transportation company.
CHILKOOT TRAIL (ALASKA)
USA

Irene Skagway
Glacier W H I T E P A S S A N D Y U K O N R O U T E R A I L W A Y
Taiya
Mount Yeatman Mount Carmack
5,670 ft 6,229 ft

Goat
Lake
1 Dyea
Although it rivaled Skagway as Alaska’s largest town during
the Gold Rush (see pp56–7), nothing remains of Dyea but
a few harbor pilings, a cemetery, and the wooden frontage 0 km 2
of a land office. Thousands of pros pectors, also called
stampeders, set off from Dyea for the Klondike. Today, Skagway 0 miles 2
it is the trailhead for the Chilkoot Trail.

For hotels and restaurants in this area see pp243–4 and pp253–4

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