The town has a year-round population of approximately 24,000. On April 1, 1953, the capital of the Yukon was officially transferred from Dawson City to Whitehorse. The 20 hours of daily summer sunshine allow you plenty of time to enjoy yourself.
Founded in 1900 with the arrival of the White Pass & Yukon Railway from tidewater at Skagway, the sparsely populated tent-and-cabin city became the terminal for freight being transferred from railway to riverboat for shipment to Dawson City.
Before the railway was pushed through to provide an easier mode of transportation, the bulk of the early-day stampeders came by ocean steamer to Skagway or Dyea and toiled over the White Pass (the route presently paralleled by the railroad) or Chilkoot Pass to the head of Lake Bennett. Here they whipsawed native lumber and built crude boats and scows to travel the 550-mile Yukon River water route to the gold fields.