South Klondike Highway

Km 37 - Fraser

The present-day location of Canadian Customs is also the site of one of the White Pass & Yukon Route railway stations. The station was named Fraser, probably to honour a politician from eastern Canada who had helped the railway company in its early days.

Construction of the White Pass railway began in May of 1898 and was completed to Whitehorse in July 1900. The 180-kilometre (110 mile) narrow-gauge line ran from Skagway, at tidewater, through Alaska and British Columbia to Whitehorse, Yukon.

Fraser is located on the stretch of track between the Summit, site of the International border, and Bennett, at the south end of Bennett Lake.

This section of track was built during the winter of 1898-99, a winter that saw exceptionally heavy snowfall and cold temperatures. Not only did this section of track have to be constructed at the worst time of the year, but it also involved the most backbreaking work: cutting a railway roadbed through solid rock.

In those days, there was no heavy equipment available for blasting. Rock debris had to be hauled by hand or by horse-drawn wagons, and in some places near the Summit, the slopes were so steep that even horses couldn't be used.

In the words of the company's first president, Samuel Haughton Graves, “Between Skaguay (sic) and Fraser, near Log Cabin, a distance of 28 miles, there was not a wheelbarrowful of gravel or loose earth ... the line was entirely on solid rock or bridges.”

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