Our train was a long one drawn by four engines. There were a baggage-car, two passenger-cars, and twenty flat and freight cars loaded with boilers, machinery, cattle, chickens, merchandise, and food-stuffs of all kinds.
After crossing Skaguay River the train turns back, climbing rapidly, and Skaguay and Lynn Canal are seen shining in the distance.... We turn again. The river foams between mountains of stone, hundreds of feet below—so far below that the trees growing sparsely along its banks seem as the tiniest shrubs.
The Brackett road winds along the bed of the river, while the old White Pass, or Heartbreak, Trail climbs and falls along the stone and crumbling shale of the opposite mountain—in many places rising to an altitude of several hundred feet, in others sinking to a level with the river.
The Brackett road ends at White Pass City, where, ten years ago, was the largest tent-city in the world; and where now are only the crumbling ruins of a couple of log cabins, silence, and loneliness.
At White Pass City that was, the old Trail of Heartbreak leads up the canyon of the north fork of the Skaguay, directly away from the railroad. The latter makes a loop of many miles and returns to the canyon hundreds of feet above its bed. The scenery is of constantly increasing grandeur. Cascades, snow-peaks, glaciers, and overhanging cliffs of stone make the way one of austere beauty. In two hours and a half we climb leisurely, with frequent stops, from the level of the sea to the summit of the pass; and although skirting peaks from five to eight thousand feet in height, we pass through only one short tunnel.
It is a thrilling experience. The rocking train clings to the leaning wall of solid stone. A gulf of purple ether sinks sheer on the other side—so sheer, so deep, that one dare not look too long or too intently into its depth. Hundreds of feet below, the river roars through its narrow banks, and in many places the train overhangs it. In others, solid rock cliffs jut out boldly over the train.
After passing through the tunnel, the train creeps across the steel cantilever bridge which seems to have been flung, as a spider flings his glistening threads, from cliff to cliff, two hundred and fifteen feet above the river, foaming white over the immense boulders that here barricade its headlong race to the sea.
Beautiful and impressive though this trip is in the green time and the bloom time of the year, it remains for the winter to make it sublime.
The mountains are covered deeply with snow, which drifts to a tremendous depth in canyons and cuts. Through these drifts the powerful rotary snow-plough cleaves a white and glistening tunnel, along which the train slowly makes its way. The fascinating element of momentary peril—of snow-slides burying the train—enters into the winter trip.
Near Clifton one looks down upon an immense block of stone, the size of a house but perfectly flat, beneath which three men were buried by a blast during the building of the road. The stone is covered with grass and flowers and is marked with a white cross.