The Overland Routes

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Most stampeders chose the cheaper and shorter overland routes. From Seattle or San Francisco, they sailed to the towns of Skagway or Dyea (now a ghost town) at the end of the Inside Passage. From there, stampeders climbed over passes in the Coast Mountains to enter Canada and reach the headwaters of the Yukon. To prevent starvation, Canadian Mounties on the border required miners to have a year's supply of food with them. Miners were also charged a 25% customs duty on the value of their goods and supplies.

The primary trails stampeders took were over White Pass or Chilkoot Pass. The 43-mile White Pass Trail was the less steep of the two, but it was narrow, strewn with rocks, and at times impassable. Pack animals along the trail died by the thousands, leading it to be called the "Dead Horse Trail."

The shorter but steeper Chilkoot Pass Trail was too steep for pack animals. Stampeders were forced to pack on their backs their supplies (including the year's supply of food!) up what became known as the "Golden Staircase." It often took several dozen trips to carry all their supplies through the pass. After crossing the mountains, prospectors still had to build boats and float 500 miles downstream to the Klondike gold fields.

Packing up the 'Golden Staircase' of Chilkoot Pass Trail

While most stampeders took the Chilkoot or White Pass Trails, there were other overland routes. A less-publicized route was the Dalton Trail (earlier called the Chilkat Trail) from Haines. Others took the Stikine River trail to Telegraph Creek and overland to Teslin. Another route to the Yukon gold fields was the Valdez Glacier Trail, advertised as the "all-American route." Over 4,000 people landed at Valdez to cross this trail in 1898.

All of the routes were difficult. It was said that whichever route a person selected, he or she wished they had chosen another. The overland routes often took more than a year. Many died along the way from cold, starvation, avalanches, and drowning. As a testament to how long and difficult these trails were, over half of the people who embarked on the Klondike turned around before reaching their destination.

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