Three towns sprang from nothing in 1896, created by Skookum Jim and his partners. They created them from a distance, from Dawson up on the Klondike. But, fittingly, Skagway, Carcross and Whitehorse sprang up in Jim’s old stomping ground. Defending Skagway First the town of Skagway. A boom town of mythic proportions sprouted on …
Tag Archives: Skagway
A Taste for Exotic Furs—And Gold
A taste for exotic furs swept across the civilized world. Exotic furs grew on exotic animals and a lot of them lived at the far northern reaches of the American Continent. More on Furs On that remote portion of the globe, Native Americans, First Nations if you’re in Canada, had developed a tribal civilization …
Defending Skagway
Defending Skagway, Alaska from the marauding Japanese posed more problems than you might think. Luckily, to one young Lieutenant’s eternal relief, it turned out that Skagway didn’t need defending. In June 1942 Lt. Darrel M. Schumacher of the 340th Engineering Regiment cooled his heels in Skagway. He and his men would walk to the Teslin …
The 340th Gets Started
The 340th Engineers heavy equipment convulsed the Skagway docks again at mid-June 1942. Vessels bearing heavy equipment jammed in one behind the other. Colonel Lyons and his regiment had reached their starting point at Morley Bay in the nick of time. Read more about getting to Morley Lyons’ pre-positioned troops in Skagway, Whitehorse, and Morley …
Hoge’s Problems Didn’t end in Seattle
So with help from Elliott, General Hoge pried his equipment out of Seattle and got it headed up the Inside Passage. But his problems moved with the equipment. Arriving in Skagway, it quickly overwhelmed the tiny harbor. Besides being small, Skagway Harbor offered twenty-foot tides which made the process of unloading vessels complicated. Incoming vessels …
A Gold Rush Memory
A Gold Rush memory to the summer tourists and outsiders who heard its name, Skagway was home and community to the people who made their lives there. Verne Bookwalter, a renowned bush pilot, lived in Skagway. And in the 1930’s, the town decided to clear an airfield along the river, hoping to attract more pilots—and …
Fascinating Skagway
Even without the Corps of Engineers and the 1942 invasion, Skagway offers a fascinating story—a story few people outside Yukon know. The harbor and the railroad amounted to an economic reason to exist—if not much of one. Like the soldiers in ’42, Freight into Yukon came through Skagway. The railroad had to have engineers and …
The Skagway They Came To
In April 1942, in a desperate rush to build a land route through Yukon, General Hoge jammed thousands of soldiers into Skagway, Alaska. The Corps hit the little town like a hurricane. A summer visitor to Skagway today can get a sense of the impact the Corps had. Arrive in Skagway in the evening when …
The Rest of the 93rd
The rest of the 93rd followed Company C into Skagway; ran into a massive traffic jam. Colonel Russell Lyons was rushing his brand new white 340th Engineering Regiment into Skagway at the same time. By April 25, the little village strained at the seams, hosting two full regiments. And one of the regiments was black. …