Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

The national park protects the core of Skagway's gold rush downtown — six blocks of restored wooden storefronts, boardwalks, and false-fronted buildings that look much as they did in 1898. The park's visitor centre on Broadway screens a film on the gold rush and has exhibits on the routes stampeders used: the Chilkoot and the White Pass.

The park is unusual in that it spans multiple sites: the Skagway historic district, the Chilkoot Trail corridor, and a unit in Seattle. In Skagway itself the focus is on the urban end of the rush — the outfitters, the brothels, the saloons, and the operators who profited from the flood of gold-seekers passing through. Walking through the district with a park ranger gives you a much sharper picture than guidebooks alone.

things to do sight museum
A story
The park's downtown unit preserves 15 historic buildings including the Mascot Saloon, where the NPS found the original bar fixtures intact beneath later renovations. The ranger-led walking tours are genuinely good — rangers in period dress walk you through the blocks and tell you which buildings were saloons, which were outfitters, and which were something less printable.

Other places in Things to Do