White Pass and Yukon Route

The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) is a Canadian and U.S. Class III narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.

The railroad began construction in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush as a means of reaching the goldfields. With its completion in 1900, it became the primary route to the interior of the Yukon, supplanting the Chilkoot Trail and other routes. The route continued operation until 1982, and in 1988 was partially revived as a heritage railway. In July 2018, the railway was purchased by Carnival Corporation & plc.

For many years the railroad was a subsidiary of Tri White Corporation, also the parent of Clublink, and operated by the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company (in Alaska), the British Columbia Yukon Railway Company (in British Columbia) and the British Yukon Railway Company, originally known as the British Yukon Mining, Trading and Transportation Company (in Yukon), which used the trade name White Pass and Yukon Route. The railroad was sold by Clublink to a joint venture controlled by Survey Point Holdings, with a minority holding by the Carnival Corporation & plc parent company of the Carnival Cruise Line.

The railway was designated as an international historic civil engineering landmark by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1994.

History

Construction

The line was born of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The most popular route taken by prospectors to the gold fields in Dawson City was a treacherous route from the port in Skagway or Dyea, Alaska, across the mountains to the Canada–US border at the summit of the Chilkoot Pass or the White Pass. There, the prospectors were not allowed across by Canadian authorities unless they had sufficient gear for the winter, typically one ton of supplies. This usually required several trips across the passes. There was a need for better transportation than pack horses used over the White Pass or human portage over the Chilkoot Pass. This need generated numerous railroad schemes. In 1897, the Canadian government received 32 proposals for Yukon railroads, and most were never realized.

In 1897, three separate companies were organized to build a rail link from Skagway to Fort Selkirk, Yukon, away. Largely financed by British investors organized by Close Brothers merchant bank, a railroad was soon under construction. A gauge was chosen by the railway contract builder Michael James Heney. The narrow roadbed required by narrow gauge greatly reduced costs when the roadbed was blasted in solid rock. Even so, 450 tons of explosives were used to reach White Pass summit. The narrow gauge also permitted tighter radii to be used on curves, making the task easier by allowing the railroad to follow the landscape more, rather than having to be blasted through it.

Construction started in May 1898, but they encountered obstacles in dealing with the Skagway city government and the town's crime boss, Soapy Smith. The company president, Samuel H. Graves (1852–1911), was elected as chairman of the vigilante organization that was trying to expel Soapy and his gang of confidence men and rogues. On the evening of July 8, 1898, Soapy Smith was killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf with guards at one of the vigilante's meetings. Samuel Graves witnessed the shooting. The railroad helped block off the escape routes of the gang, aiding in their capture, and the remaining difficulties in Skagway subsided.

On July 21, 1898, an excursion train hauled passengers for out of Skagway, the first train to operate in Alaska. On July 30, 1898, the charter rights and concessions of the three companies were acquired by the White Pass & Yukon Railway Company Limited, a new company organized in London. Construction reached the summit of White Pass, away from Skagway, by mid-February 1899. The railway reached Bennett, British Columbia, on July 6, 1899. In the summer of 1899, construction started north from Carcross to Whitehorse, north of Skagway. The construction crews working from Bennett along a difficult lakeshore reached Carcross the next year, and the last spike was driven on July 29, 1900, with service starting on August 1, 1900. By then much of the Gold Rush fever had died down.

At the time, the gold spike was actually a regular iron spike. A gold spike was on hand, but the gold was too soft and instead of being driven, was just hammered out of shape.

Early years

As the gold rush wound down, serious professional mining was taking its place; not so much for gold as for other metals such as copper, silver and lead. The closest port was Skagway, and the only route there was via the White Pass & Yukon Route's river boats and railroad.

While ores and concentrates formed the bulk of the traffic, the railroad also carried passenger traffic, and other freight. There was, for a long time, no easier way into the Yukon Territory, and no other way into or out of Skagway except by sea.

Financing and route was in place to extend the rails from Whitehorse to Carmacks, but there was chaos in the river transportation service, resulting in a bottleneck. The White Pass instead used the money to purchase most of the riverboats, providing a steady and reliable transportation system between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

While the WP&YR never built between Whitehorse and Fort Selkirk, some minor expansion of the railway occurred after 1900. In 1901, the Taku Tram, a portage railroad was built at Taku City, British Columbia, which was operated until 1951. It carried passengers and freight between the SS ''Tutshi'' operating on Tagish Lake and the MV ''Tarahne''The original meaning of the word ''tarahne'' not recorded. Appears to have been derived from Tlingit phrase ''táay aani'', which means ''village of gardens'' (''táay'' 'garden''+ ''aan'' 'village''+ ''i'' ossessed noun suffix. , at pp. at pp. i (''i'' = possessed noun suffix); A1, B60 (''aan'' = ''town''); A42, B25 (''táay'' = ''garden''). Most households in Atlin in 1907 had vegetable gardens. , at page 271. Note that the Tlingit language does not have an ''R'' sound. However, the word ''táay'' is known to have been corrupted with an ''R'' by European speakers. , at page 243 reports the pronunciation of ''táay'' (''garden'') to be "tār." Everything else about ''tarahne'' looks like it came from ''táay aani'' (''village of gardens''). operating across Atlin Lake to Atlin, British Columbia. (While ''Tutshi'' was destroyed by a suspicious fire around 1990, ''Tarahne'' was restored and hosts special dinners including murder mysteries. Lifeboats built for ''Tutshis restoration were donated to ''Tarahne''.) The Taku Tram could not turn around, and simply backed up on its westbound run. The locomotive used, the ''Duchess'', is now in Carcross.

In 1910, the WP&YR operated a branch line to Pueblo, a mining area near Whitehorse. This branch line was abandoned in 1918; a haul-road follows that course today but is mostly barricaded; a ''Whitehorse Star'' editorial in the 1980s noted that this route would be an ideal alignment if the Alaska Highway should ever require a bypass reroute around Whitehorse.

By June, 1914, the WP&YR had 11 locomotives, 15 passenger cars and 233 freight cars operating on of trackage; generating $68,368 in passenger revenue and $257,981 in freight revenue; still a profitable operation as operating expenses were only $100,347. While all other railroads in the Yukon (such as the Klondike Mines Railway at Dawson City) had been abandoned by 1914, the WP&YR continued to operate.

During the Great Depression, traffic was sparse on the WP&YR, and for a time trains operated as infrequently as once a week.

World War II

Alaska became strategically important for the United States during World War II; there was concern that the Japanese might invade it, as Alaska was the closest part of the United States to Japan. Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the decision was made by the US and Canadian governments to construct the Alaska Highway

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