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Home > Caribou Crossing Adventure Company > General Information |
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Carcross, Yukon, Canada The Carcross/Tagish First Nation traditional territory is located south of the Yukon’s capital city of Whitehorse. The main community for summer day trips is the town of Carcross, one hour north of Skagway and 45 minutes south of Whitehorse. From the time the first prospectors came over the Chilkoot Pass, this place was known as Caribou Crossing because of the large herds of caribou that crossed the narrows between Bennett and Tagish Lakes twice a year on their annual migration. Artifacts of aboriginal people--flaked stone tools estimated to be 4,500 years old--have been found here. Following the discovery of Klondike gold in 1896, it became a popular stopping off place for stampeders in their migration to and from the gold fields of Dawson City. For a short time it had the largest sawmill in the territory--owned by Mike King--who also built boats and scows for the gold rush trade from early 1897. From the tent towns that sprung up in the area, several prominent hotels emerged. The Caribou Hotel was built here in 1898, and still enjoys the distinction of being the oldest operating hotel in the territory. In 1899 Fred Trump, grandfather of American millionaire playboy Donald Trump, and his partner Ernest Levin, opened a restaurant in a tent at Bennett. When the White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&YR) threatened to draw business away from the old trail, Trump and Levin floated The Arctic to a new site across from the Bennett depot and later relocated in Whitehorse.
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