Skagway and Dyea: Gold Rush Boom Towns

Exhibit: Klondike Gold Rush - The Perilous Journey North

Outfits lay stacked in Dyea as stampeders grouped their supplies

Outfits lay stacked in Dyea as stampeders grouped their supplies. Circa 1897.

Skagway and Dyea, Alaska, located 600 miles south of the gold fields, were the closest salt water ports to the Klondike. They soon became "boom towns" that catered to miners. The most popular routes to the Klondike began here: from Skagway, stampeders took the White Pass and from Dyea they took the Chilkoot Pass.

map of white and chilkoot pass trails

Map of White and Chilkoot Pass Trails
~ En Route to the Klondike: A Series of Photographic Views, Part III. People's Series. Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co., 1898.

Skagway, Alaska. August 1897.
~ Edith Feero Larson Collection, Detail from Photo #75.