White Pass
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This article refers to the pass between Alaska and British Columbia. For White Pass in the U.S. state of Washington, see White Pass (Washington).
The White Pass is a mountain pass through the Coast Mountains in the U.S. state of Alaska and British Columbia, Canada that leads from Skagway, Alaska to the ghost town of Bennett, British Columbia on Lake Bennett.
The trail through the pass, called the White Pass Trail, was one of the two main passes used by prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush. The White Pass offered a longer but lower and less steep route (summit elevation: 873 metres) to Bennett than the Chilkoot Trail a few kilometers to the west, but was considered more dangerous because of the amount of crime and the shell game bunco men that worked the trail taking money and gold from gullible stampeders. These tricksters were believed to be members of the infamous Soapy Smith gang from Skagway, Alaska. Given its lower elevation, a wagon trail was built along the White Pass. Many horses died on the way during the Gold rush; the trail became known as the "Dead Horse Trail". Prospectors carried their supplies from Skagway to Lake Bennett, where they built or purchased rafts or boats to float down the Yukon River to the Klondike gold fields near Dawson City.
The White Pass was named for Canadian Minister of the Interior Thomas White by William Ogilvie in 1887 after Skookum Jim Mason and William Moore discovered it.
The White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge railroad was built along the White Pass. The southern end of the Klondike Highway also uses the White Pass and parallels the railway.
[edit] External links
- University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Eric A. Hegg Photographs 736 photographs from 1897-1901 documenting the Klondike and Alaska gold rushes, including depictions of frontier life in Skagway and Nome, Alaska and Dawson, Yukon Territory. Includes images of White Pass and White Pass Trail.
- Soapy Smith Preservation Trust
