A narrow strip of land forms the boundary between the water of the Lynn Canal—at sea level– and the towering mountains of Canada’s Coastal Range. Skagway, Alaska occupies that tiny strip of land.
The great Klondike Gold Rush just after the turn of the 20th Century created Skagway, a boomtown of mythic proportions virtually overnight. Most of the thousands of would be miners came on ships that sailed up the Canal to tie up to the dock that protruded from Skagway into the Canal.
With the miners came more men and women who came, not to mine gold but to mine the miners. Most of them never bothered to leave Skagway; stayed to mine the miners as they passed through. A narrow strip at the foot of the mountains suited them just fine.
Strikes, Gold Strikes, in the Far North
When the gold rush ended, as suddenly as it had begun, the thousands disappeared. The saloons and brothels emptied and the little city almost, but not quite, disappeared with them. Empty, deteriorating buildings stood everywhere.
But the gold rush left Skagway with a harbor, a dock and a narrow gauge railroad that ran from the dock up the Coastal Range to Canada–to Carcross and Whitehorse. Freight into Yukon Territory came through Skagway. Someone had to unload it and put it on the train. The railroad had to have engineers and brakemen and conductors and mechanics.
Tourists came in the summer to hunt game and to explore the legendary country of the great Gold Rush. Somebody had to tend to their needs—feed them, entertain them, guide them through the woods.
After mid-September, the ships came less frequently. Trains ran only two to three times a week and snow drifts blanketed the tracks. Mail to Skagway that came almost daily during summer came only twice a month in the winter. The little town entered a period of almost total isolation, its citizens supporting and entertaining each other until the outside world returned in June.
In 1942 Skagway had about 400 residents and it’s safe to say that a more unusual citizenry has never existed anywhere.
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