Ghost Towns: Silver City, Yukon Territory

Kluane Lake is the largest lake in the Yukon, and is close to 40 miles long. It used to flow into the Pacific Ocean but just a few thousand years ago a glacier damned it's outlet. Over time the lake filled up until it eventually created another outlet, flowing north towards the Yukon River. The glacier receded but the flow of the lake has been permanently altered.

On the southern shore of the lake, next to Destruction Bay, is a ghost town called Silver City. The Kluane Lake area was the site of a short-lived gold rush in the early 1900s. Dawson Charlie, one of the discoverers of gold in the Klondike, staked the first claim on 4th of July Creek in the summer of 1903. By the end of that year 2,000 claims had been made in the Kluane region.

The North-West Mounted Police followed closely behind the prospectors, setting up summer camps in canvas tents on Ruby Creek, Bullion Creek and Pine Creek in 1904. A permanent detachment was established at the outlet of Silver Creek where a small community, called Kluane or Silver City had sprung up. The NWMP barracks, a district mining office and a post office were among the buildings in the new community.

Silver City was also notable because it was the end of the road from Whitehorse. Further travel required getting on a boat and using the rivers. This is the way it remained all the way up until 1942 when the Alaska Highway pushed the road the rest of the way to Alaska. When i first moved up to Alaska in 2001 this portion of the highway, which took all day to travel, was still dirt. Today the road is much improved, but there are still some gravel sections.

As far as Silver City, half a dozen large buildings remain scattered among the trees. A Bed and Breakfast operates nearby, and also an arctic studies research station.

Skagway and Haines

Skagway and Haines are only separated by 15 miles of water, but they are nearly 350 miles apart by road. So it's best to take the ferry. Both towns are steeped in history.

Skagway marked the beginning of the route to famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1896. Within two years of the discovery of gold Skagway became the most populous city in Alaska. For several years during that time Skagway was lawless, and run by groups of con men who created a well oiled system for cheating newcomers out of their money as they arrived in town. The city and some of it's residents, like Soapy Smith, bore numerous similarities to the famous Deadwood television series.

 

Today a remarkable amount of that history has been preserved, and the bulk of the downtown area is a kind of living museum. Cruise ships arrive regularly, and during the day the streets are jam packed full of tourists. Then, at 7 or 8pm the boats sound off their enormous horns, and the tourists hypnotically file back into the ships, like the Eloi in The Time Machine. The town is transformed. Residents, now off work, begin to live their lives, relaxing, riding around on bikes in the empty, quite streets. It's very nice at that time of day.

 The streets are peaceful after the cruise passengers leave.

 The original headquarters of Soapy Smith.

Unfortunately all these beer bottles were empty.

The White House B&B, where i stayed the second day in Skagway. It was far better than the previous night's accommodations.

The unfortunate thing about Skagway is that the entire economy appears to be based on tourism. All of the buildings downtown are either gift shops, restaurants, or museums. The White Pass railroad is a major employer, but it too has devoted it's operations almost entirely to tourism. Outside that small downtown area there is virtually nothing. Still, it's a very nice town.  With the whole White Pass area a few miles away I wouldn't mind spending an entire summer there, maybe even longer.

 Some pictures of the pioneer cemetery in Skagway.

  

The view from my room at the Chilkoot River Lodge

 Coincidentally, they day i stayed in the Chilkoot Lodge happened to be the day of an annual race where contestants get into makeshift rafts and race the last mile of the river down to the ocean. The guys in the lower picture managed to hit every rock in the river.

I took the ferry to Haines, and felt a world away when i arrived. Although Haines does have it's own tourist industry, it is also a functioning town in other ways. Downtown looks more like a downtown of any other tiny city, but around the edges you'll find other industries, like logging and fishing. I get the sense that Haines could survive in some form if the tourists stopped coming.

Portage Cove

Fort Seward is visible from afar, but up close many of the buildings appear to be in disrepair.

After the quaintness of Skagway i wasn't too happy with the hotel selection in Haines. I did find one incredible place to stay, and i couldn't believe it had a room available. It was called the Chilkoot River Lodge, and it only had 3 or 4 rooms. Having just opened, it still smelled brand new on the inside. Situated directly above the Chilkoot River, you can catch fish, and then walk right up to lodge, cook the fish on a large grill, and eat it on the spot.

The Bald Eagle and the otter in these pictures were having a duel over a fish carcass. The otter won, i think because i spooked the eagle when i got too close. While i was taking pictures i didn't notice the quickly rising tide. By the time i was done the camera bag i left on the beach was in the water. It ruined one of my extra batteries.

I only stayed in Haines for one day, but it was a long one. I had wanted to take a flight tour over to Mt. Logan and Lituya Bay, the site of the larges megatsunami ever recorded. I didn't get to go because it was the 4th of July and either the flights were already full, or the pilots were taking the day off. Instead i hung out and enjoyed some of the small town festivities, including an impressive fireworks display late in the evening. I couldn't figure out where such a small town could get enough money for such a big show.

I decided i would try and take a flight tour from Haines Junction, in the Yukon. I called and made reservations the next morning. I had already been up that way a few days before on the way to Whitehorse, and met a French Canadian pilot who seemed enthusiastic.

Fourth of July firework celebrations in Haines.

Chilkoot Trail

Skagway is next to the start of the famous Chilkoot Trail, the start of the journey for prospectors looking to strike it rich during the Klondike Gold Rush. I've always heard that it's a great trail, and pictures i've seen look pretty nice.

 I decided i wanted to go follow the stream to it's source and see Chilkoot Valley on the other side.

Somehow, though, i couldn't see this lake from the road, so after i parked and walked this far i realized i would have to walk all the way around the lake before i could continue on.

Towards the final years of the gold rush the White Pass Railway was completed. The railway traveled from Skagway to Carcross via White Pass, one valley over from Chilkoot Pass. They say the Chilkoot Trail takes up to a week to complete, and most of that time is spent walking through the forest in the bottom of the valley. Since i was more interested in the lanscape above treeline, i decided to hike over to Chilkoot Pass from White Pass, just for the view.

There were two hanging valleys to choose from, and i chose the one that was more to the south. It looked like i might attract attention from the Canadian border patrol for getting to close to their water supply if i chose the north valley. The southern one was in no man's land in between the two U.S./Canadian customs offices. Technically, i think i was right on the edge of British Columbia the whole day.

One of several lakes with unclear outlets. The sound of running water was everywhere under the snow in this area.

The walk from the road to the higher pass i had chosen was generally easy but longer than i expected, until i hit an area of frozen lakes and snowfields. It was July 3rd, and i was burning up in the snow. Down the hill in Skagway they were having a record breaking 85 degree day and up in the mountains the snow was melting so fast that ponds were forming on top of the snowfields. I had to walk around numerous lakes and make use of a lot of snow bridges over the streams before reaching a high point. I don't know if it is common to get that hot down there, but up around Anchorage i've never been in that kind of heat at that altitude.

Above all the frozen lakes right up at the pass i found this moose carcass. It was sad to think it had made it up this high and then critically injured itself. It looked like it had a broken leg. I imagine it must have died late in the fall, maybe slipping on ice. I think it had just melted out of the snow, as it still had a lot of 'organic liquids' in the carcass.

Looking over at Chilkoot Pass.

I was also looking at a storm building up over the area i had come from.

I kept thinking it was going to blow by but at this point i decided i needed to leave quickly.

The view into Chilkoot Pass and it's glacier backdrop was impressive.  I stayed up there for about 45 minutes. On one side i was listening to a glacier constantly crumble over a cliff, and on the other i was watching thunderstorms build up in the heat. Eventually i had to flee as the wind changed and blew the storms overhead. For a good 1/2 hour i had to move quickly over the snow, in pouring rain, while lightning struck the peaks around me. It was surreal to be in a lightning storm while navigating by frozen lakes. Likewise, i was baffled to be stripping off layers of clothing while trudging through snow in thick rain and wind. Again, I've never been in an alpine environment, moving through bad weather, with those kinds of warm temperatures.

 The rain started to move on, then it got downright muggy.

This area was fun to navigate.

I realized eventually that the pass area is littered with fault lines and i had to walk through one to get back to the road. Here you can see the fault coming down from higher on the ridge...

....and continuing on down valley. The whole lake i had to cross initially is only there because of the fault. Farther down valley the road crosses over the fault on a bridge over a deep chasm. The bridge looks funny because it is connected to only one side of the fault. The idea is that in a major earthquake it won't be torn apart.

White Pass may be the most impressive car-accessible pass i've ever seen, other than Logan's Pass in Montana.  It is by far the biggest. It covers many square miles of table lands dotted with sparse patches of trees scattered among an huge, intricate lake and canal system literally creating a maze. All those lakes make up the part of the headwaters of the Yukon River. From the pass it's only a 16 mile drive down to the ocean, but the Yukon River heads in the opposite direction for 1,980 miles until it hits the Bering Sea.

 This looked like another interesting hike, but that would have to wait for another day.

The Buckner Building

The Buckner Building is 273,660 square feet of dark, scary, flooded hallways. It used to house the entire town of Whittier, which was established in World War 2 as a secret military base. It had to be abandoned after suffering structural damage in the 1964 earthquake. So it's been abandoned for a long time but everyone who goes to Whittier sees it.

The building isn't fenced off or secured, so there isn't much to stop someone from entering, other than the frightening, filthy nature of what's inside. Maree decided to go explore it this summer with a friend one weekend. She came back with enough interesting pictures and stories that i decided i needed to check it out myself. So a few days later, during a rainy day, i decided to drive down and see what i could find, stepping slowly through half of the flooded floors, trying to avoid puncturing the rubber fishing waders i was wearing to keep my feet dry.

 

The building is huge. Six stories are above ground, with at least two  below ground levels, from what i hear. Every single window has been broken, and since Whittier is a rainforest, every floor is flooded under a few inches of water. All non metal/rock materials have decayed into a nasty rust colored type of mud/powder that seems to collect more on the lower levels. Even the concrete  is dissolving away and being redeposited as calcite cave formations.

This room is turning into a rookery. Notice the noose at the top of the picture. Neither of us noticed on our individual visits until we saw the photo. Failure to pay attention to your surroundings is undeniable proof of super natural activity.

The upper levels are not too scary, largely empty and sort of rinsed clean, relative to the rest of the floors. They have many very small rooms. It's hard to tell if the rooms were offices or dorm rooms. As you go down lower though, things start to get creepy and dark. These pictures that i took are from floors three through six. I was taking pictures in natural light and had no flashlight.

This is a scary open area in the central part of the building.

The building is divided into three sections that are not connected. Maybe they are expansion joints? I don't know what they are, but crossing from one section to the next involves stepping over an 10 inch gap in the floor. At these gaps you can see all the way down or up, left or right. At those points water is sometimes cascading down from floor to floor. The sound of water is everywhere, with occasional waterfalls pouring out of the ceiling.

The farther down you go the creepier and darker things become.

I ended up being in the place for nearly three hours before i got tired and hungry. Since i had no flashlight i was unable to visit the dark floors. I walked a little ways into the second floor, into an abandoned nightclub and restaurant. I had a video camera with nightvision but it didn't work well enough to tell what i was stepping on and what to avoid with my head at the same time.

At this point things began to look just like something from the Silent Hill games. I would never want to come here at night.

Nature is taking control. There was even a small tree or two in a couple of rooms.

Lower down, hidden in the dark, are a bowling alley, theater, even a prison. We saw some pictures somewhere of the prison in the basement, flooded under a foot or two of nasty water with rusty prison bars and open cages everywhere. It looked nuts. They say in winter bears will sometimes go to the basement to hibernate.

One of the wings that runs perpendicular to the length of the building. The second and first floors are mostly boarded up at the windows, and the first floor is additionally hidden behind a thick growth of trees and bushes.

Calcified gravel is fending off weird algae.

Below are some of the pictures Maree took of the lower levels where i couldn't go. She has this amazing feature on her camera called a flash. It's sad, but i've never bought a flash because i hate them.

A calcite column and stalactites in one of the dark lower floors. Here they have solidified an open door!

A great texture on a frightening elevator door.

A large hallway covered in something undefinable stretches into darkness.  This is just like the type of place where you'd have to fight the first boss in a survival horror game.

A few rows of seating in the theater.

 

The floor looks particularly disgusting in the theater. Some poor soul wandered in on a bike and was surely devoured by demons.

See the Buckner Building in Winter!         Buckner Building: The Winter Palace