White Pass and Yukon Railway: Yukon's Path to the Pacific

Annual General Conference Assemblée générale annuelle Edmonton, Alberta June 6-9, 2012 / 6 au 9 juin 2012

White Pass and Yukon Railway: Yukon’s Path to the Pacific Ken Johnson AECOM Abstract: The Yukon and White Pass Railway was the first major civil engineering project in North America north of the 60th latitude. Constructed in 27 months from 1898 to 1900, this 176 kilometre narrow gauge railway carried thousands of prospectors and their supplies to the Klondike Gold Rush from the Pacific Ocean.

The railway provided the first efficient transportation link from the Port of Skagway, Alaska over the coast mountain range into the interior of the Yukon, and opened up the Yukon Territory to significant development by providing a major all-season transportation link for the territory for over 80 years. The railway also had an important role in the construction of the Alaska Highway, and the transport of ore from the Yukon mines to southern markets.

The narrow gauge Yukon and White Pass Railway climbs almost 873 metres from sea level at the Port of Skagway to the White Pass summit in a distance of only 32 kilometres. This steep grade over the coast mountains was constructed with manual labour; the main equipment, aside from blasting powder, consisted of picks and shovels. The railway construction was maintained during the severe working conditions of a sub-arctic winter, and necessitated the development of construction techniques for permafrost areas, as well as cold region construction logistics and management.

1.

The Beginning of the Klondike Gold Rush

George Carmack and two native companions, Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie, made history on August 17, 1896, when they discovered gold on Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in the Yukon Territory. News of their discovery did not reach civilization until the following summer, but when it did it started the gold rush which spread across the continent.

Men and women sold their shops and belongings to buy passages at Vancouver, Victoria, or Seattle on one of the coastal ships going north. From there they carried their supplies for 60 kilometres on their backs, climbing either the rugged White Pass or the Chilkoot Pass to the head of Bennett Lake. Once at Bennett Lake they constructed makeshift boats and rafts for an 800 kilometre trip to Dawson City. Before the 1898 winter freezeup more than 7,000 watercraft, carrying 30,000 gold seekers, were registered with the North West Mounted Police on the Klondike River system.

Gold-seekers who headed for the Klondike had to choose between the shorter, steeper Chilkoot Pass (1140 metres elevation), or the longer, lower White Pass (873 metres elevation).

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Figure 1: Pack trail up to the White Pass and railway cut in the upper left background.

As the White Pass is lower in elevation than Chilkoot Pass, pack animals could be used to pack supplies. The trail, however, was extremely difficult. The route crossed swamps, bogs, canyons, dense forests, and areas of large boulders. With the thousands of pack animals and prospectors tramping down the trail during the initial rush, it soon became difficult for animals to walk over.

2.

The Dream of a Railway

In the mid 1880s a longtime northern ship captain, William Moore, predicted that a gold rush would eventually occur in the Yukon. In 1887 Captain Moore stated that a wagon road could be built through the then unnamed White Pass, and even a railway, when the need arose.

Captain Moore went as far as to construct a wharf in Skagway in 1887 and post a 160 acre parcel of land. He emphasized a number of advantages of the White Pass as a route to the Yukon in comparison to the all water route up the Yukon River from the Bering Sea. These advantages included that once a trail was completed to the navigable source of the river, sternwheel river boats could then be brought into service to move freight and passengers downstream; thus the White Pass could be used for a much longer period during the season than any other route. The White Pass route would also accommodate tidewater facilities for ocean-going vessels and a year round ice free port. This was unlike the community of Dyea, which was at the beginning of the Chilkoot Pass, where freight and passengers would have to be transferred from ship to the muddy beaches by barges and small boats.

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The first preliminary survey of the White Pass was conducted in 1892 on the instructions of British Columbia's Surveyor General. The survey reported that the White Pass was impractical as a route to the Yukon interior.

In 1896 an English civil engineer, representing British investors, assessed that a railway could not be built through the Chilkoot Pass unless someone financed the construction of a long tunnel through the mountain beneath the pass itself. His assessment of White Pass stated that there did not appear to be any serious obstacles to construction at the lower elevations.

The first presentation of this assessment to the British investors (the Syndicate) about a railway into the Yukon was met with a mixture of disbelief and complete humour. However, this skepticism soon changed once the gold rush began.

In the final months of 1897 Skagway became the focal point of discussions, plans, and activities in widely separated parts of the world. In three countries, players began the battle for control of the freight in and out of the Yukon.

In January 1898, more than 20 applications had been made to the Canadian provincial and federal governments for the incorporation of various railway enterprises, all of which had the Klondike for their goal.

In early February 1898, it was announced that the Syndicate was ready to start construction.

They also announced that the railway could be constructed from Skagway to Lake Bennett in ninety days and that the railway could be in full operation by August of 1898. The track gauge would be 1.07 metres (narrow gauge), and the grade would not exceed 3 percent.

In Skagway a chance meeting between the Syndicate engineers and a Canadian railway contractor initiated the construction organization for the work to proceed. All agreed that the building of a railway through the White Pass would be an extremely labour intensive undertaking, requiring a reasonably stable work force with an extensive range of skills. The work would be hard and hazardous, and because much of it would be constructed under sub-arctic weather conditions, any men employed in the railway's work gang would be tested to their limits.

Figure 2: Working on one of the many rock cuts in the construction of the railway.

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An initial capital cost estimate for the construction from Skagway to Bennett Lake was $1,570,000. An initial calculation on the investment return suggested that over a five month operating period, the operating and maintenance cost would be $203,000 and the fees charged for freight would be $3,300,000. This represented a potential profit of over $3,000,000.

3.

The Construction to the White Pass

A wide variety of engineering and construction problems were present in a distance of 32 kilometres between Skagway and the White Pass. These problems included more than just ice shrouded cliffs. During the winter months temperatures could reach -50째C; there would be long hours of winter darkness, deep snows, and high winds. Also, the problem of supplies was imminent because the closest commercial and industrial centre was 1600 kilometres to the south.

A first visual survey of the eastern bank of the route identified blocks of broken granite of every size and shape. The slope stability was also a concern because the removal of material at the toe of the slope could bring down avalanches of rock; for this reason the east side of the valley was initially rejected.

Figure 3: Railway grade below White Pass.

Five survey parties conducted independent surveys along both sides of the pass and all five surveys revealed advantages along their selected routes. On the west side, the rock footing was superior, but the nature of the terrain imposed a steep grade. On the east side, the footing appeared less secure, but valuable grade-reducing distance could be gained.

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The final factor in the survey equation was to find a route through the natural obstacles that was capable of providing maximum gradients of less than four percent and curves of no more than sixteen degrees. A final route was plotted 31.554 kilometres in length along the east side of the valley from Skagway to the White Pass summit.

Although a number of the senior staff were Canadian, there was some doubt about the quality of the work to be performed. American construction was generally considered to be cheap and flimsy by engineers and contractors in England. However, this doubt was soon put to rest as the construction proceeded.

Leap-frogging workers around major obstacles became part of the construction strategy. As soon as a breakthrough was achieved at a particularly difficult point on the line, the initial cuts and work trails beyond had already been completed, making a rough but immediate linkup possible.

As the end of September 1898 approached, 27 kilometres of grade had been completed and 20 kilometres of railway were in operation. It was now known that some sections of the railway were costing as much as $75,000 per kilometre, and the least cost per kilometre was $6,000.

The average cost from Skagway to Glacier Station (22 kilometres from Skagway) was $38,000 per kilometre. Added to this was the fact that the cost of coal in Skagway was approximately 8 times the cost in the south.

Figure 4: One of the many major rock cuts along railway grade.

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In mid November of 1898 the railway was employing 1400 men and had spent nearly $1,200,000 on construction. All it had to show for this effort was 21 kilometres of operational track. The discontinuous grade between Skagway and the summit was still solidly blocked in key places by overhanging cliffs and large canyons.

One of the major obstacles was a 365 metre wide canyon which would require a cantilever bridge. To save time a switchback was constructed to convey the trains from one side of the canyon to the other. The track reached the summit of White Pass on February 18, 1899, approximately five and a half months behind the original schedule.

The thirty-seven bridges built south of the White Pass summit in 1899 had a combined length of 1250 metres. In addition, hundreds of metres of snow fence, to control drifting snow, were being erected in the most exposed areas along the operational portions of the track. Long snow sheds to protect the track at slide areas were also being built.

Construction continued on and the railway was completed to Bennett Lake on July 6, 1899.

There were competing tramlines in the Chilkoot Pass which were eliminated by purchasing the operations, and the railway's income from both freight and passengers rose sharply.

Upon reaching Bennett Lake, earnings began to reach about $5,000 per day; on July 10, 1899 the railway brought in an amazing $11,436.00 in freight and passenger charges.

4.

Carcross to Whitehorse

The railway construction continued with construction from Carcross to Whitehorse, leaving a 48 kilometre section between the south end of Bennett Lake and Carcross to be serviced by boat. It was anticipated that the grades to Whitehorse would not exceed 2 percent, that there would be very little rock work, and that a large proportion of the line could be constructed by teams of horses and scrapers, after clearing off the brush. This was an unrealistic initial assessment that did not recognize that beneath the surface were large areas of permanently frozen ground.

A route survey was made for the most practical alignment for the railway through the low-lying hills, ridges, swamps, and lakes. There had been no time to sink sufficient soil test holes, but those that were completed produced encouraging results. As the graders moved deeper into the valley towards Whitehorse, they found permafrost beneath the soil. The presence of permafrost created unexpected delays and increased costs because it was discovered that permafrost could be only effectively excavated by blasting.

At Lewis Lake, 15 miles from Carcross, the engineers elected to lower the water level of the lake by 3 metres to facilitate construction of the grade along the lake. This was to be completed by cutting a one metre wide trench through a 100 metre narrow, sandy ridge that contained the southern end of the lake. Unfortunately, the flow of water eroded the ditch creating a flow of water 30 metres wide and 3 metres deep.

In the end Lewis Lake had unintentionally been lowered by 21 metres, 18 metres more than planned. The end result was the need to construct two additional bridges, each nearly 15 metres high and 180 metres long. If bridge materials had not been delivered to the site before freezeup, the completion of the railway project through to Whitehorse could have been delayed by at least one year. In addition, the pile driver for the bridge piers was useless against permafrost; in setting piles the crews had to first to blast out 2 metres of frozen earth.

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Figure 5: Ken Johnson on the shore of Lewis Lake during filming of White Pass and Yukon Wits, Grit and Guts (History Channel Documentary filmed in 2004).

Another particularly difficult stretch of construction was a section of frozen quicksand approximately 60 metres in length. Dry earth was placed on top of it to insulate the quick sand enough to carry the load of the trains.

5.

Bennett City to Carcross

North along Bennett Lake, the crews had to drill and blast through the rocky points of the lake, creating numerous cuts through which the grade would eventually pass. The shattered rock was hauled by teams of horses and tipper carts, and dumped into the heads of numerous bays that intersected the surveyed grade line, creating embankments to support the grade.

The rock work along the shore of Lake Bennett was more costly than anticipated. At $150,000 per kilometre this cost greatly exceeded the ordinary cost of $6,000 per kilometre of railway.

Crews at times were able to lay steel at a rate of 4 kilometres per day. Crews lifted the rails from the flat car carrying them forward to the ties, which had already been positioned and marked to receive the 9 metre lengths of rail. Four gangs drove home the spikes - four spikes to the tie, thirty-six spikes to the rail, and seventy-two spikes to each 9 metres of track.

The final spike was set in Carcross on the 29th of July 1900, which marked the beginning for a new era of transportation in the north.

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Figure 6: Railway grade along Bennett Lake.

6.

A Railway Legacy

Regular service over the White Pass and Yukon started in August 1900. In Whitehorse a fleet of sternwheelers carried the gold seekers down the Yukon River to Dawson City.

Upon completion of the work, the railway's shareholders were still concerned about the future of Yukon mining. To date they had invested approximately $10 million in the construction of the railway, which did not include the cost of purchasing the competing transportation companies.

Their concern was abated by the news that gold shipments from the Klondike for 1900 to the first week of July totalled more the $7 million. A ship left Skagway on July 4 with $1,450,000 in her strong box.

The route of the 176 kilometre narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skagway to Whitehorse is one of the most beautiful in the world, but its construction was difficult and costly, at over $56,000 per kilometre on average. This was approximately 9 times the cost for typical railway construction at the time.

During World War II the U.S. Army took over the railway and the line served an important role in hauling supplies for the construction of the Alaska Highway. In 1982 economic conditions and a reduction of mining activity in the Yukon forced the railway to close. The railway opened again in 1988 to provide a tourist shuttle from Skagway to Bennett Lake.

References Johnson, Ken. White Pass and Yukon Railway - A Cold Region Engineering Milestone. 1994.

Johnson, Ken. Personal Photographs of White Pass and Yukon Railway. 2004.

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