SKAGWAY , the northernmost ferry stop on the southeast route, sprang up overnight in 1897 as a trading post serving Klondike Gold Rush pioneers about to set off on the five-hundred-mile ordeal. It was also the last stop before the harrowing White Pass Trail, known as the "Dead Horse Trail," on which over three thousand horses perished during the winter of 1897-98 from severe weather, rugged ground and exhaustion. Having grown from one cabin to a town of twenty thousand in three months, Skagway, rife with disease and desperado violence, was reported to be "hell on earth." It boasted over seventy bars and hundreds of prostitutes, and was controlled by organized criminals, including the notorious Jefferson "Soapy" Smith , renowned for cheating hapless prospectors out of their gold. One of his scams was to operate a bogus telegraph office through which he concocted false messages from loved ones in the Lower 48 urgently demanding money, which Soapy, of course, took responsibility for sending. He finally met a nasty end in 1898 after a shoot-out with Frank Reid, head of a vigilante group.

By 1899, the Gold Rush was over, but the completion in 1900 of the White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skagway to Whitehorse, the Yukon capital, ensured Skagway's survival. Today, the town's 800 residents have gone to great lengths to maintain the original appearance of their home, much of which lies in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park , and in summer as many as five cruise ships a day call in to appreciate the effort.