Canada Guide
The North
Whitehorse
WHITEHORSE is the likeable capital of the Yukon and home to more than 23,000 of the region's 31,000 inhabitants. It's also the centre of the Yukon's mining and forestry industries and a busy, welcoming stop for thousands of summer visitors. The town owes its existence to the Yukon River, a 3000-kilometre artery that rises in BC's Coast Mountains and flows through the heart of the Yukon and Alaska to the Bering Sea. The river's flood plain and strange escarpment above the present town were long a resting point for Dene peoples, but the spot burgeoned into a full-blown city when thousands of stampeders arrived in the spring of 1898.
The completion of the White Pass and Yukon Railway (WP&YR) to Whitehorse put this tentative settlement on a firmer footing – almost at the same time as the gold rush petered out. In the early years of the twentieth century the town's population dwindled quickly from about 10,000 to about 400. The town's second boom arrived with the construction of the Alaska Hwy, a kick-start that swelled the town's population almost overnight, and has stood it in good stead ever since.