Chilkoot Pass - An Alternate Route

An Alternate Route

There was another alternate pass the travelers could travel called White Pass. This pass was full of outlaws and proved to be very difficult to navigate as it was much narrower than the stampeders were led to believe. This pass became too narrow for wagons, but men still attempted to use horses along the trail. Unfortunately, they did not have experience working with horses and often worked the animals to death. The men would either put the animals down, or when the horse fell and could not get up, they would just pull the shoes and leave the animal to die in the mud and snow. This was a common occurrence on White Pass along a stretch that was dubbed Dead Horse Trail. The men would travel back down to the beach again and purchase more horses to replace the ones that had died on this trail. Most of the horses that died on the White Pass trial had died within a two mile stretch of slope. By 1897, 3200 pack horses had died on White Pass trail and their bodies left there. The bodies of the horses were often used as footing for other pack horses making their way through the trail. The horses that had fallen were not always dead and were still left to be walked on and to die horribly. When the horses could not work anymore, or were of no further use along the Chilkoot Trail, the animals were turned loose without feed. Many animals were left at the base of Chilkoot Pass at Sheep Camp. Most of the animals became sick and starved as they staggered through the camps in attempts to find food. The horses were no longer useful and had lost their value.