Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 44,412 as of March 2023. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement in any of the three territories.
The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. From its source in British Columbia, Canada, it flows through Canada's territory of Yukon. The lower half of the river continues westward through the U.S. state of Alaska. The river is 3,190 kilometres (1,980 mi) long and empties into the Bering Sea at the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta. The average flow is 6,400–7,000 m3/s (230,000–250,000 cu ft/s). The total drainage area is 833,000 km2 (321,500 sq mi), of which 323,800 km2 (125,000 sq mi) lies in Canada. The total area is more than 25% larger than Texas or Alberta.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yukon.
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's (1874–1958) poems. It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough. It concerns the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge, Yukon, Canada, as told by the man who cremates him.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
The Tagish or Tagish Khwáan are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group that lived around Tagish Lake and Marsh Lake, in Yukon of Canada. The Tagish intermarried heavily with Tlingit from the coast and the Tagish language became extinct in 2008. Today Tagish people live mainly in Carcross or Whitehorse and are members of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation or the Kwanlin Dün First Nation.
Tagish Lake is a lake in Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada. The lake is more than 100 km (62 mi) long and about 2 km (1 mi) wide.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
The Klondike River is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada that gave its name to the Klondike Gold Rush. The Klondike River rises in the Ogilvie Mountains and flows into the Yukon River at Dawson City.
Yukon is in the northwestern corner of Canada and is bordered by Alaska and the Northwest Territories. The sparsely populated territory abounds with natural scenic beauty, with snowmelt lakes and perennial white-capped mountains, including many of Canada's highest mountains. The territory's climate is Arctic in territory north of Old Crow, subarctic in the region, between Whitehorse and Old Crow, and humid continental climate south of Whitehorse and in areas close to the British Columbia border. Most of the territory is boreal forest with tundra being the main vegetation zone only in the extreme north and at high elevations.
The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, settlers, and townsfolk.
The SS Islander was a 1519-ton, 240-foot (73 m) steel hull, schooner-rigged twin-screw steamer, built in Scotland in 1888, and owned and operated by the Canadian-Pacific Navigation Company.
Steamboats on the Yukon River played a role in the development of Alaska and Yukon. Access to the interior of Alaska and Yukon was hindered by large mountains and distance, but the wide Yukon River provided a feasible route. The first steamers on the lower Yukon River were work boats for the Collins Overland Telegraph in 1866 or 1867, with a small steamer called Wilder. The mouth of the Yukon River is far to the west at St. Michael and a journey from Seattle or San Francisco covered some 4,000 miles (6,400 km).
Songs of a Sourdough is a book of poetry published in 1907 by Robert W. Service. In the United States, the book was published under the title The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.
The Glenlyon was a freighter built in 1893; it was sunk off the shore of Isle Royale in Lake Superior in 1924 and the remains are still on the lake bottom. The wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
A. J. Goddard was a Klondike Gold Rush era sternwheeler owned by Seattle businessman Albert J. Goddard and built for transport of men and supplies on the Upper Yukon River in Canada. She was assembled from pieces which were manufactured in San Francisco, shipped up to Skagway, Alaska, hauled over the Coast Mountains, and finally assembled at Lake Bennett. She made one trip to Dawson during the gold rush, was sold and sank in a storm on Lake Laberge in 1901. Her wreck was discovered in 2008 by Doug Davidge and was designated as a Yukon Historic Site.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
Jim Boss was an entrepreneur and the chief of the Southern Tutchone Ta’an Kwäch’än for over 40 years. He is most known for having initiated the first Yukon land claim, in 1902. His leadership allowed the First Nations from the southern region of the Yukon to make the transition from a traditional way of life to a Euro-Canadian economy. In 2001, he was designated a Person of National Historic Significance.
