This railroad was constructed more or less along the route of Klondike 2, aka YT 2, BC 2, and AK 98. It runs from Skagway AK, along Dead Horse Gulch (think Trail of Tears for the poor horses of the 1898 Klondike gold rush), through White Pass, and into British Columbia, where it continues northward into the Yukon and up to Whitehorse and beyond. The scenery here, though, is confined to the first short section, running from Skagway to the BC customs station, which happens to be around 10 miles past the AK/BC border.


That little scratch in the rocks was trodden by tens of thousands of gold seekers over a century ago, and is now marked by just that little black on white sign. Most of the route, as you can tell, is gone now. 3,000 horses gave their lives for their masters, most of whom had no clue how to care for them (especially in Alaska).


The first is Bridal Veil Falls, and the last is a look into Dead Horse Gulch. The middle two photos are just wet. When in doubt, a drop of water will go into the gulch.


This abandoned bridge looks like a rickety wooden structure, but in fact was the world's longest cantilever steel bridge when it opened. That was, though, in 1901, which is why the train now runs through a short tunnel in the side of the mountain rather than go over the bridge and around the hill. You can see the smaller tunnel at the very end of the bridge in the second photo.


Crossing the border from Alaska to... the moon. Trees don't grow much above 3' tall here, and the entire plateau has a very eerie, lifeless look to it, even though much of the terrain is green. And yes, these are in British Columbia.

From here, it's on up to the hammer waters, so named because of the sound of early invaders American and Canadian visitors hammering on their salmon traps. The Tlingit (they pronounce it Klinkit, and now so do you) word for hammer waters is Klondike. Eureka, a name! Eureka, a 5-carat gold nugget! I'll go buy an Internet startup now.

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