The International Gold Rush Trail is a proposed thematic system joining communities together a land and water route from the docks of Seattle through the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon gold fields. This is a trail of history and experiences gained from retracing the steps of prospectors on the Trail of ’98 suitable for hikers, [...]
At more than 17 million acres in size, the Tongass National Forest located in Southeast Alaska is the largest forest administered in the overall national forest system. The Tongass is world renowned for its old growth temperate rain forests covered with enormous Sitka spruce, Hemlock fir, and Yellow cedar. These forests protect watersheds that support [...]
Most visitors to Ketchikan begin their journey with a walk through downtown and through historic Creek Street. Creek Street is actually a pile-supported boardwalk, dotted with a variety of buildings spanning a tidal creek and not a street at all. This out of the way corner is the town’s historic red light district that actively conducted its affairs until 1953.
For over a hundred years, Skagway has served as the primary port access for the Yukon Territory. A small town at the northern reaches of Lynn Canal, Skagway attracts nearly a million visitors a year. They come to see the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, ride the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad (WP&YR), [...]
Nearly 110 years ago, a wave of seemingly ordinary people poured relentlessly into the North, suffering incredible hardships to seek their fortunes toiling in the frozen earth. Thousands of these erstwhile adventurers crossed through the wild expanses of Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon in the years of 1897 and 1898; reaching out for the [...]
Wrangell is a community steeped in rich history, home to people for thousands of years. It is an island community in southern Southeast Alaska that has experienced the boom and bust resource development process so prevalent in Alaska’s past.
In its heyday, Dyea proclaimed itself like many other towns yet to come as the largest city in Alaska. Stampeders crossed Chilkoot Pass with their ton of goods in the effort to strike it rich in the Klondike goldfields starting in 1898.
The watercourse running from the Spatsizi Plateau to the Pacific Ocean is a territory of superlatives, yet known simply as the Stikine River. Naturist John Muir’s initial trip up the river changed his life. He noted 300 glaciers along its shores. Details are in his book Travels in Alaska. Muir says of the Stikine, it’s a “Yosemite 100 miles long.”
