Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

28 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. GRADING THE TRACK. The Sleigh Trail. should come. Meanwhile communication be- tween rail-head at the Summit and the con- struction camps beyond was maintained by means of an iced roadway, which was con- structed at a sufficient elevation above the surrounding snowfields to be kept clear of snowdrifts by the constant action of the wind. The traffic soon ground down this road- way into one of the most perfect highways imaginable for either fast or heavy sleighing. In addition to construction material and camp supplies, an immense passenger and freight business was carried over it during the spring of 1899. Amongst other things carried were the boilers, engines, and woodwork for a fleet of steamers built at Lake Bennett that spring, so that when the railway reached the lake and navigation opened, there was “ a fleet in being ” ready to carry the traffic down the Yukon River to the Klondike. The largest single piece carried over the iced road was a 30-ton boiler built in England for use in the Klondike. This was brought to the Summit of the White Pass in the spring of 1899 over the new railway track, and taken by twenty horses over the iced road to Lake Bennett, whence it was floated on a barge down the Yukon, including the passage of the dreaded White Horse Rapids, and in due course arrived safely in Dawson. As the spring advanced, the iced road was kept up with increasing difficulty, till finally even light traffic by night became impossible. A channel was then blasted for six miles through the thick rotten ice on Summit Lake, and connection was thus established with the new railway grade beyond the lake, which thereafter was used as a roadway till the rails were laid and trains could run over it. As soon as the iced road became useless, such numbers of the public insisted on using