The Klondike Highway climbs 3,292 feet in fourteen miles — the steepest sustained grade of any public road connecting Alaska to Canada. Completed in 1978 to replace the narrow-gauge railway as the primary overland route, the two-lane asphalt ribbon follows the 1898 trail that carried 100,000 stampeders toward the Klondike goldfields. Where horses collapsed under loads of flour and bacon, modern coaches now carry visitors through successive climate zones in under an hour. Departures from Skagway access the highway free of charge, though organized excursions handle border formalities and provide interpretation at named stops. The route crosses into British Columbia at Fraser, then enters Yukon Territory near Log Cabin, passing Tormented Valley — a granite chasm scoured by glacial meltwater — and the Tutshi Lake overlook before reaching White Pass summit at kilometer 52. Operators schedule stops at the suspension footbridge spanning Tutshi Canyon, where the deck sways 65 feet above turquoise water fed by the Wheaton River. Yukon tour from Skagway itineraries typically include visits to husky camps operated by retired Iditarod and Yukon Quest mushers, where summer cart rides demonstrate the gait and power of working sled dogs. These camps occupy forested clearings along the South Klondike Highway, 20 to 30 minutes beyond the international boundary. The border crossing at Fraser processes recreational traffic seven days a week during cruise season, with Canadian officers stationed in a modest cabin flanked by territorial and national flags. The highway's historical corridor preserves remnants of the stampede era: rusted boilers from stern-wheelers, collapsed log caches, and interpretive plaques marking disaster sites. White Pass itself earned the nickname Dead Horse Trail after 3,000 pack animals perished in the autumn of 1897, their bones still visible in gullies below the modern roadbed. Contemporary tours from Skagway balance this sober legacy with access to the Yukon's living ecosystems — stands of white spruce and lodgepole pine, populations of mountain goat and black bear, and vistas that stretch across the Boundary Ranges to peaks exceeding 8,000 feet. The Canadian side receives less precipitation than coastal Alaska, creating a transition zone where moss-draped hemlock gives way to high-altitude meadows dusted with lupine and fireweed through late August.