Chilkoot tramway, possibly the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company, c.1898
The Chilkoot Trail tramways were aerial tramways that played a significant role in the Klondike Gold Rush and the Chilkoot Trail as a transportation system to move prospectors and equipment towards the Dawson City/Klondike gold fields.
Four tramways and one hoist operated on the trail, although all eventually closed before 1900 when the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad became the transportation method of choice for remaining prospectors.
Peterson Hoist
The Peterson Hoist, set up in 1896, was one of the first of semi-permanent gear-hauling infrastructures to be built on the trail. Little is known about P.H. Peterson's hoist, including its location. He may have in fact operated on the adjacent, eponymous Peterson Pass instead of the Chilkoot Pass. Peterson's hoist simply consisted of, according to an observer, a pulley at the top of the pass with a rope running through it. Attached to one end of the rope was a sled with runners and the other a box. Gear would be loaded into the sled while the box would be filled with snow and gravity would work its magic with the snow-filled box pulling the sled up as it went down. Everything would be emptied and the operation repeated. The hoist's simplicity leads to part of the befuddlement over the location, as this hoist left a minimal number of artifacts.
On February 17, 1898 Peterson leased the hoist to J.F. Hielscher for the subsequent five months, which were the peak months of the rush.
Archie Burns' Tramway
Archie Burns, in the spring of 1897, instituted the first tramway on the trail running from the Scales to the false summit on the Chilkoot Pass. The tramway was horse-powered but also combined its services with manual hauling services from Dyea to The Scales.
In the winter of 1897-1898 the tram was purchased by Juneau merchant C.W. Young and the tram and associated hauling services became C.W. Young Freighting and Trading Company with Burns remaining as manager. As early as December 1897 or as late as February 1898 (the precise date is unknown), the newly coined C.W. Young Tramway upgraded from horse power to steam power. With the less-developed Peterson Hoist as its only competition, the C.W. Tramway was heavily used and profits rolled in. By late February 1898, the tram was hauling over five tons of freight daily with its rates changing upon demand. Later, for unknown reasons, Burns decided to supplement the steam-powered tram with a gasoline powered hoist operating in a similar manner to the Peterson Hoist except using gasoline power instead of a gravity counterweight. In January 1899 Burns purchased the tram and hauling infrastructure back from C.W. Young for $5,000 as the number of prospectors taking the Chilkoot dwindled. Either the end of that winter or the beginning of that spring, Burns closed his tram for the last time leaving Southeast Alaska for Nome, Alaska. He came back in 1900, however, only to reclaim the valuable portions of machinery although many artifacts from his operation remain as artifacts on the trail today.
Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company (DKT)
Aerial tramway powerhouse, Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company, ca. 1898
The Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company (DKT) came into the Chilkoot Trail scene in the fall of 1897 with ambitious plans. It originally set out to build a "narrow gauge tramroad like those used in mines" from their wharf in Dyea up to The Scales. From there an aerial tramway would haul gear up and over the pass creating a comprehensive freight transportation system from the waters of Lynn Canal all the way into Canada. However, like many ideas tossed around during gold rush days, this one fell through after the company, which was located in Portland, Oregon, ran into financial difficulties. The operation was subsequently scaled back and replaced the planned tramroad with horses, although plans for an aerial tram at the pass remained.
On March 17, 1898, the DKT opened its 2,400-foot (730m) aerial tramway proudly announcing it to be "the only tramway in the world powered by electricity." This turned out to be true, with the electricity originating from the company's Canyon City power plant which was originally created to power the tramroad. Ruins of a steam boiler exist at the location. Seven miles of power lines from Canyon City up to The Scales carried the electricity to the tramroad. The tramway ruined Archie Burns'/C.W. Young's monopoly on tramways on the pass and, for just under a month, it was the only aerial tramway over the pass.
The tramway's history as an independent company turned out to be relatively short. In June 1898, four months after the tramway opened, the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company merged with both the Alaska Railroad and Transportation Company and Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company (the other two substantial tram companies in operation) for a more cooperative and coordinated operation. In June 1899, one year after the merger, the conglomerate tram company was purchased by the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad to prevent competition and began to be scrapped in the fall of 1899.
Alaska Railroad and Transportation Company (AR&T)
The Alaska Railroad and Transportation Company (AR&T) was the second most-developed tramway system on the Chilkoot Trail, the second of three aerial tramways to be constructed, and also the second to last tramway to be constructed.
The AR&T, under the jurisdiction of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, showered interest in the Chilkoot Trail area around December 1897 by purchasing tidewater property for a wharf in Dyea and building freight depots at both Dyea and near Sheep Camp. The company's intentions, as its name reveals, was to build a railroad up to The Scales and construct an aerial tram from there over the pass. While it is not known how the concept of a railroad was dropped soon after the company's creation, the railroad portion of construction was no longer pursued.
Construction began and sometime around May 1898, the gas-powered, 6,000-foot (1,800m) long aerial tramway was completed. Unlike the three other tram companies, AR&T's operation consisted only of the tramway, with no horse-hauling services or other subcontracted services. The tramway, however, was far superior to the Dyea-Klondike Company's tram in terms of weight able to be carried, length, and strength but its spell as the dominant freight agent in the Taiya River valley was short-lived as well. Soon the Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company finished construction on their longer, more durable, and more comprehensive system and by June of the same year all three tram companies merged and began charging uniform rates.
It is believed that the tram operated until June 1899 when it was purchased by the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad which was aiming to clear competition for its services. By March 1900, workers had cleared everything of value from the tram line leaving only empty wooden structures.
Horizontal elevation plan for an aerial tramway 8,250 feet (2,510m) long at the Chilkoot Pass from Stone House to Crater Lake. Each line mark represents 500 feet (150m)
Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company (CR&T)
Chilkoot Trail tramway in forest, 1898
The Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company (CR&T) was the largest, most comprehensive, and last of the Chilkoot Trail tramways to be constructed.
At first, planners toyed with a horse-drawn tramroad and even a railroad going straight up the Taiya River valley, but financial restraints tempered these plans. The company settled on a wagon road to Canyon City, a two-stage aerial tram system (Canyon City to Sheep Camp and Sheep Camp to Stone Crib), and contracted packing services from Stone Crib to Lake Lindeman. This system enabled the company to be the first to offer an integrated transportation option that would transfer prospectors' gear from the wharfs of Dyea to the headwaters of the Yukon River (i.e., Lake Lindeman and Lindeman City).
Construction began in December 1897 and both trams began running by May 1898. While CR&T merged with the Alaska Railroad Transportation Company and the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company just a month after CR&T opened its trams, its infrastructure was heavily used well into June 1899 when the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad construction reached Lake Bennett in British Columbia effectively rendering CR&T obsolete. Even then, however, CR&T's freight rates were comparable to those of the railroad and so in 1899 White Pass and Yukon Route purchased the Chilkoot Railroad and Transportation Company's trams and began dismantling them beginning in January 1900 and finishing by April of the same year.
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 with more than 1,000,000 visitors each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area. The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is a Canadian and U.S. Class III 3 ft 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 District of Alaska was the federal government’s designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884, to August 24, 1912, when it became Alaska Territory. Previously (1867–1884) it had been known as the Department of Alaska, a military designation.
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 late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
Chilkoot Pass is a high mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the U.S. state of Alaska and British Columbia, Canada. It is the highest point along the Chilkoot Trail that leads from Dyea, Alaska to Bennett Lake, British Columbia. The Chilkoot Trail was long a route used by the Tlingit for trade.
Bennett Lake is a lake in the Province of British Columbia and Yukon Territory in northwestern Canada, at an elevation of 2602 ft.. It is just north of the border with the United States state of Alaska, near the Alaskan port of Skagway.
Bennett, British Columbia, Canada, is an abandoned town next to Bennett Lake and along Lindeman Creek. The townsite is now part of the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site of Canada and is managed by Parks Canada. Bennett is also a stop on the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad during the summer months.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, 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, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River, Crater Lake, Lake Lindeman, and Bennett Lake.
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 the Chilkoot Pass within the limits of the Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska. During the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors disembarked at its port and used the Chilkoot Trail, a Tlingit trade route over the Coast Mountains, to begin their journey to the gold fields around Dawson City, Yukon, about 800 km (500 mi) away. Confidence man and crime boss Soapy Smith, famous for his underworld control of the neighboring town of Skagway in 1897–98 is believed to have had control of Dyea as well.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
The Taiya River is a 17-mile-long (27 km) river in the U.S. state of Alaska running from the border with British Columbia, Canada, to the Taiya Inlet of upper Lynn Canal.
The Yukon Trail is a 1994 educational computer game from the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), similar to their previous Oregon Trail series but set during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 19th century. Players start out in Seattle and must make decisions concerning supplies, a partner, and travel plans as they head to Alaska before boating down a river to Dawson City and staking a claim to mine for gold. The game features the famous author Jack London and authentic 19th-century photographs that show what life was like back then.
The Skagway Historic District and White Pass is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing a significant portion of the area within the United States associated with the Klondike Gold Rush. It includes the historic portion of Skagway, Alaska, including the entire road grid of the 1897 town, as well as the entire valley on the United States side of White Pass all the way to the Canada–US border. This area includes surviving fragments of three historic routes used during the Gold Rush, as well as the route of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. Almost 100 buildings remain from the Gold Rush period. Portions of the district are preserved as part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
Steamboats on the Yukon River played a role in the development of Alaska and Yukon. Access to the interior of Alaska and Yukon was hindered by large mountains and distance, but the wide Yukon River provided a feasible route. The first steamers on the lower Yukon River were work boats for the Collins Overland Telegraph in 1866 or 1867, with a small steamer called Wilder. The mouth of the Yukon River is far to the west at St. Michael and a journey from Seattle or San Francisco covered some 4,000 miles (6,400 km).
Eric A. Hegg was a Swedish-American photographer who portrayed the people in Skagway, Bennett and Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush from 1897 to 1901. Hegg himself participated in prospecting expeditions with his brother and fellow Swedes while documenting the daily life and hardships of the gold diggers.
Larss and Duclos was a photographic studio partnership between Per Edvard Larss and Joseph E. N. Duclos (1863-1917) in Dawson City, Yukon Territory during the Klondike Gold Rush era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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.
Portus B. Weare was a wooden sternwheel steamship built in 1892 for service on the Yukon River. She played a notable role in the Klondike gold rush, being the second ship to bring news of the Klondike gold strike and an estimated $1 million in gold down the river in 1897. This set off the gold rush. The vessel carried freight and passengers up the Yukon to Dawson City and later Fairbanks. She was abandoned in 1926 or 1927, after the need for steamboat transport to the interior declined.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
