White pass and Yukon route

The Contractor that built the railway said "Give me enough dynamite and chewing tobacco and I'll build a road to Hell." Although in many ways he might have found building his road to Hell a lot easier than building a railway across the frozen mountains. This narrow gauge railroad is one of the few railways built by volunteers, rather than imported immigrants. This is because gold seekers had to stop and make a grub stake, or wait out the winter before heading across the mountains on the Chilkoot trail to the gold fields of the Yukon. So many gold seekers worked on the railroad while they waited for the trail north to open.