Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE WHITE PASS AND YUKON RAILWAY. 25 Sufferings of Baggage Animals. minimum amount of work in order to make the Indian trail at all possible for horses. But the moment that a horse could by any means be got over the trail, all further improvement ceased, and was never again resumed. The first horses were got over when there was no great crowd, and it was possible to unload a horse and lead him light over a bad place, reloading him on the far side. But as the rush increased this could no longer be done, and it was then that the trail became so fatal to horses as to earn the sin- ister title of the “ Dead Horse Trail.” The chief reason why the trail was so fatal to horses was because the owners were mostly ignorant, and began by overloading them at Skaguay, and trusted to luck for their horses being able to forage for themselves, not know- ing that the mountains were so steep that a horse could not move to either side of the trail, and that every blade of scanty grass within reach had long since been eaten. Dur- ing the rush, this narrow trail was blocked, so that neither man nor horse could go faster or slower than the speed of the huge living serpent that slowly wound its way over the pass. When a delay occurred, the horses for miles back had to stand loaded, as no one could tell at what moment travel would be resumed. In this way the horses became ex- hausted under their loads long before they had reached the Summit, and frequently fell and broke their legs on the rough rocks, in which case the load was removed and travel resumed across the dead body of the horse. In one of the worst places on the trail there were over 3,500 dead horses in a distance of a mile ! In order to put an end to the terrors of the trip across the coast range of mountains from Skaguay, and also to afford commercial access to the interior of the country, the White Pass and Yukon Railway was pro- A Railway projected. jected from Skaguay to the head of navi- gable waters on the Yukon River, whence access is obtained to the interior of the Yukon Territory and Alaska by many thousands of miles of rivers and lakes. Though the length of this railway is only 115 miles, it extends through no fewer than three different jurisdictions, and is subject to as many different sets of laws—namely, those of the United States, of the Dominion of Canada, and of the Province of British Co- lumbia. The first 20 miles, from the sea at Skaguay to the Summit of the White Pass, is through United States territory ; from the Summit to the shores of Lake Bennett the line is in the Province of British Columbia ; and thence to White Horse it is in the Yukon Territory of Canada, and subject to the Federal authority of the Dominion of Canada. When construction was first commenced, in 1898, the situation was further complicated by the dispute between Canada and the United States as to the ownership of the terri- tory between the Summit of the White Pass and the sea at Skaguay. Construction was commenced in 1898, while the Klondike rush was at its height, which, of course, greatly increased the difficulty of securing and keeping an ade- quate supply of labour. War yjjg between the United States and Railway Spain having broken out that commenced, spring, most of the available shipping on the Pacific coast had been chartered by the United States Government, and this enhanced the difficulty of providing transport for the men and the material, which had to be carried 1,000 miles from the bases of supply on the Pacific coast to the ocean terminus of the proposed railway at Skaguay. At that time there was no telegraphic communication, and this increased the difficulties entailed in work- ing 1,000 miles from any base of supply. When the railway surveyors reached Skaguay on May 27, 1898, they found the town site