The White Pass & Yukon Route Railway climbs 2,865 feet in twenty miles, threading steel through passes that broke ten thousand stampeding prospectors in 1898. Engineers blasted tunnels through vertical granite and suspended tracks above Bridal Veil Falls while men died of scurvy and avalanche. The narrow-gauge line opened in July 1900, two years after the Klondike Gold Rush peaked, rendering moot the trails it was built to replace. Today the railway operates as a heritage corridor, preserved under joint U.S. and Canadian designation. Skagway Yukon train tour departures roll past the original 1898 depot at Second Avenue, where stampeders once offloaded two thousand pounds of mandatory supplies per person. Vintage parlor cars follow the route surveyors called impossible: Dead Horse Gulch, named for the three thousand pack animals that perished on the adjacent Chilkoot Trail. At White Pass Summit, elevation 2,888 feet, the border cuts through alpine tundra. Canadian customs officers board at Fraser, British Columbia, sixteen miles beyond the summit. The round-trip Summit Excursion returns to Skagway after three hours. Extended routes continue to Carcross, Yukon, adding another ninety minutes and a customs stop in both directions. The White Pass & Yukon Route carried ore, mail, and passengers until 1982, when falling mineral prices closed the mines it served. Cruise ship arrivals revived the railway as a tourist operation in 1988. Track crews still use hand tools to maintain wooden trestles over gorges where replacement steel would compromise the National Historic Landmark designation. Steam locomotives appear on select summer dates; diesel-electric units handle daily service. Morning light illuminates the eastern slopes of the Sawtooth Range. Afternoon sun washes out details but warms the open vestibule platforms where photographers crowd during photo stops at Inspiration Point and the international boundary marker. Winter service suspends operations from October through April, when snow load exceeds the capacity of century-old timber trestles. The railway's engineering feats remain visible: cantilever bridges bolted into cliffside, switchbacks carved from permafrost, and tunnels bored without explosives to avoid destabilizing the mountainside. The grade never exceeds 3.9 percent, a mathematical achievement given the vertical gain. Original construction documents, held at the railway's Skagway headquarters, record the cost at $10 million in 1900 currency—equivalent to $350 million in 2026 dollars adjusted for inflation.