White Pass and Yukon Route bridge in Carcross, Yukon 2

Bennett Lake is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

in the Province of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

and

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

Territory in northwestern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, at an elevation of 2602 ft. (642 m.) . It is just north of the border with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

, near the Alaskan port of

Skagway The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal wit ...

. The narrow-gauge

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 rai ...

Railroad connects the community of

Bennett Bennett may refer to: People *Bennett (name), including a list of people with the surname and given name Places Canada * Bennett, Alberta *Bennett, British Columbia *Bennett Lake, in the British Columbia and Yukon Territory ** Bennett Range ** Ben ...

at the south end of the lake with Skagway further south and

Whitehorse, Yukon Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

on the north. It runs between Skagway and

Fraser, British Columbia Fraser is a location on the Klondike Highway in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Description The community has no businesses or permanent residents aside from employees of a Canada Border Services Agency port of entry located there, alon ...

during the summer months. The abandoned town of

Bennett, British Columbia Bennett, British Columbia, Canada, is an abandoned town next to Bennett Lake and along Lindeman Creek (formerly known as the One Mile River). The townsite is now part of the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site of Canada and is managed by Par ...

, historically usually referred to as Lake Bennett or Bennett Lake and the town of

Carcross, Yukon Carcross, originally known as Caribou Crossing, ( tli, Nadashaa Héeni) is an unincorporated community in Yukon, Canada, on Bennett Lake and Nares Lake. It is home to the Carcross/Tagish First Nation. It is south-southeast by the Alaska Highway ...

are on the shores of Bennett Lake.

History

During the Klondike Gold Rush, Bennett Lake was where the gold-seekers who had crossed the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbi ...

from Skagway or

Dyea Dyea ( ) is a former town in the U.S. state of Alaska. A few people live on individual small homesteads in the valley; however, it is largely abandoned. It is located at the convergence of the Taiya River and Taiya Inlet on the south side of th ...

, carrying their goods over the

Chilkoot Trail The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the lat ...

or the

White Pass White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, (elevation ) is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Ala ...

, purchased or built rafts to float down the

Yukon River The Yukon River ( Gwich'in: ''Ųųg Han'' or ''Yuk Han'', Yup'ik: ''Kuigpak'', Inupiaq: ''Kuukpak'', Deg Xinag: ''Yeqin'', Hän: ''Tth'echù'' or ''Chuu k'onn'', Southern Tutchone: Chu Nìikwän, russian: Юкон, Yukon) is a major watercour ...

to the gold fields at

Dawson City, Yukon Dawson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Dawson (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Dawson (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name Places Antarctic ...

, Canada. A large tent city sprang up on its shores, numbering in the thousands and offering all the services of a major city. In late May 1898, the

North-West Mounted Police The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian para-military police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territo ...

counted 778 boats under construction at Lindeman Lake (located a difficult portage above Bennett Lake), 850 in Bennett and the surrounding area, and another 198 at Caribou Crossing (now Carcross) and

Tagish Lake Tagish Lake is a lake in Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada. The lake is more than long and about wide. It has two arms, the Taku Arm in the east which is very long and mostly in British Columbia and Windy Arm in the west, mostly in ...

to help transport thousands of goldfield-bound travellers. It was further estimated that another 1,200 boats were built in these areas over the next few weeks.

Name origin

Named in 1883 by Frederick Schwatka, US Army officer and explorer, after

James Gordon Bennett Jr James Gordon Bennett Jr. (May 10, 1841May 14, 1918) was publisher of the ''New York Herald'', founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him ...

(1841–1918), editor of the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

'', who was sponsor of Schwatchka's search for the remains of the

Franklin Expedition Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwes ...

, 1878-81.

Hydrology

The main outflow of the lake is the Nares River, which flows to Nares Lake. Nares Lake empties into

; then via the

Tagish River The Tagish or Tagish Khwáan ( Tagish: ; tli, Taagish ḵwáan) are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group that lived around Tagish Lake and Marsh Lake, in Yukon of Canada. The Tagish intermarried heavily w ...

Marsh Lake Marsh Lake (Mud Lake) is a widening of the Yukon River southeast of Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. It is over 30 kilometres long and ranges from three to four kilometres wide. The co-ordinates of the lake are , and is 2,147 feet above sea level. The ...

, the source of the

, which flows to the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Am ...

Inflows

*Watson River *Wheaton River *Millhaven Creek *Dry Creek *MacAuley Creek * Partridge River *Latreille Creek *Homan River *

Lindeman Creek Lindeman Creek, formerly known as One Mile River connects Bennett Lake to Lindeman Lake, areas on the Chilkoot Trail in far northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The caption for an 1897 Frank La Roche photograph refers to it as the Lewes Ri ...

*Dundalk Creek *Knob Creek *McDonald Creek

Historical image gallery

File:Bennett showing the White Pass & Yukon Railroad, British Columbia, February 13, 1900 (HEGG 546).jpeg,

White Pass & 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 rail ...

train passing through Bennett on February 13, 1900 File:Lake Bennett boats.jpg, Photograph of boat building on the lake during the Klondike Gold Rush by Eric A. Hegg File:Bennett on Bennett Lake, British Columbia, ca 1898 (HEGG 671).jpeg, Photograph of tent city of Bennett along

One Mile River Lindeman Creek, formerly known as One Mile River connects Bennett Lake to Lindeman Lake, areas on the Chilkoot Trail in far northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The caption for an 1897 Frank La Roche photograph refers to it as the Lewes Ri ...

and Lake Bennett by Eric A. Hegg ca. 1898

References

External links

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Atlin District