In addition to being an Aurora-viewing place, Whitehorse is just full of history. We visited here in 2001, 2003, and 2005 in our pickup/5th-wheel rig. We enjoyed this town immensely, from the great little bookstore to the Canadian Tire store to the restaurants. When we're not mid-day sleeping we'll try to look around and see what's changed.

Here's a shot of the old river steamer "SS Klondike" along the Whitehorse waterfront on the Yukon River.

In the later part of the 1898-99 gold rush days to get to the Klondike, a few hundred miles down the Yukon from here, people would ride here on the White Pass and Yukon RR. Then they'd transfer to one of these river steamers for the remainder of the trip to Dawson at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike. Of course the gold had already been found and staked by those who were on the scene at discovery. Very few made any real money later.

The gold was hauled out in reverse - up the river to Whitehorse, then the railroad to the sea at Skagway.

When gold was discovered later at Nome and other places, people just moved there, leaving Dawson behind. Later it was found that this created a wonderful tourist opportunity and entrepreneurs started building up the place again.

When Dawson was nearly deserted, the Territory Capital was moved from there to Whitehorse. In WW2 Whitehorse was a primary spot during the construction of the Alaskan Highway with construction materials brought up on the WP&Y RR.

The Wikipedia article on Whitehorse is found here. The Wiki for Dawson is here.