Interactive timeline · 7,000 BCE to 2026
Kwanlin Dün and Ta'an Kwäch'än lands, gold rush, highway and capital: 28 moments.
28 moments5 eras45 sourcesAbout ↓
7,000 BCE – 1895
Hunters used the southern Yukon for thousands of years; the ancestors of Southern Tutchone, Tagish and Inland Tlingit people camped at the river.
Since 1997, melting alpine ice patches in southern Yukon have released more than 180 ancient hunting weapons and 1,400 animal bones. They show that hunters used throwing darts from about 9,000 years ago until about 1,200 years ago, when bows and arrows replaced them.
Artifacts at least 2,500 years old found near Whitehorse show that First Nations people camped there regularly to hunt and fish. They were most likely ancestors of the Southern Tutchone, Inland Tlingit and Tagish people who live in and around Whitehorse today.
Traders set up posts across Yukon and exchanged tea, flour and tools with First Nations, and the fur trade dominated relations with outsiders until gold was found in the Klondike in 1896. Unlike most of southern Canada, Yukon had no treaties before 1993; believing the gold rush would pass, the federal government did not offer one.
1896 – 1940
Stampeders, the White Pass railway and riverboats created a small transportation town.
The Klondike Gold Rush brought about 40,000 people to Yukon between 1896 and 1899, many employing First Nations people as packers and guides. In 1898 the head of navigation below Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids, two major obstacles on the Yukon River, became a temporary stopping point for prospectors heading to Dawson.
The Yukon Territory Act created Yukon as a separate territory out of the Northwest Territories on June 13, 1898, with its capital at Dawson City.
The 177 km railway from Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse was finished when the last spike was driven at Carcross on July 29, 1900; at least 35 of the roughly 35,000 workers died building it. Whitehorse became a permanent settlement where the railway met the river, on the west bank.
In 1900 Chief Jim Boss (Kishxóot) of the Ta'an Kwäch'än petitioned Yukon Commissioner William Ogilvie for a 1,600-acre reserve at Tàa'an Män; only 320 acres were granted. In 1902, with a lawyer's help, he wrote to Indian Affairs in Ottawa demanding control of over-hunting and compensation for lost land: "Tell the King very hard we want something for our Indians, because they take our land and our game."
⚖️ Established fact
Established factThe historical record shows Ottawa granted a reserve one-fifth the size requested and did not negotiate a treaty or compensation in response to Chief Boss's 1902 letter; Yukon First Nations' land claims were not settled until the 1990s.
The Anglican log church built in 1900 served as the main Anglican church in Yukon until 1962 and briefly as the diocesan cathedral after 1953. One of the oldest surviving buildings in Whitehorse, it became a museum in 1962.
Four residential schools operated in Yukon between 1903 and 1985, including the Whitehorse Baptist mission school. Kwanlin Dün leader Judy Gingell, who began attending the Whitehorse Baptist Residential School in 1951, recalled being made to feel ashamed of her First Nations heritage.
⚖️ Officially acknowledged
Officially acknowledgedThe federal government funded the residential school system. The 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement compensated former students, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in the House of Commons in 2008.
A short copper boom in the Whitehorse copper belt ended in 1920. The White Pass company ran riverboats to Dawson through its British Yukon Navigation Company, promoted tourism, and in 1935 founded British Yukon Aviation to fly mail, freight and passengers from Whitehorse. Still, the population fell from about 2,000 after the gold rush to about 750 by 1941.
1941 – 1949
The Alaska Highway, Canol Pipeline and airfields brought tens of thousands of workers.
During the Second World War about 30,000 American and Canadian service members and civilian workers passed through Whitehorse, expanding the Northwest Staging Route airfields and building the 2,300 km Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek in 1942–43. First Nations people moved to the highway for work, and the federal government forced others to relocate to administrative centres for schooling and services.
⚖️ Established fact
Established factThe Canadian Encyclopedia states that the federal government forced First Nations people in Yukon to relocate to administrative centres to receive education and social services, with lasting harm to communities.
At US urging, a 1,000 km pipeline was built from Norman Wells, NWT, to a refinery at Whitehorse between 1942 and 1944. It cost more than five times its $24-million estimate, suffered from shoddy work, and was abandoned in March 1945 after 13 months of operation.
Canada took over its section of the Alaska Highway in April 1946, and it opened to unrestricted travel in 1948. The highway replaced the Yukon River as the main transport route, and Whitehorse became headquarters of the Northwest Highway System.
1950 – 1992
Incorporation, the move of the capital and a mining economy, alongside residential schools and band amalgamation.
Swollen by wartime and postwar growth, Whitehorse was incorporated as a city in 1950. In the 1950s Ottawa funded roads and other aid to stimulate Yukon mining, and by the end of the decade a ship-train-truck container system moved ore through Whitehorse.
In 1953 the territorial capital moved from Dawson to Whitehorse, adding government to the city's economic base. Riverboat service to Dawson ended in 1954; the restored sternwheeler Klondike is preserved in the city.
In 1956 the Department of Indian Affairs decided on its own that Yukon had too many bands and merged six into three. Peoples living between Marsh Lake and Lake Laberge who had moved into the Whitehorse area were combined into the Whitehorse Indian Band, today the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, absorbing the Ta'an Kwäch'än.
⚖️ Established fact
Established factThe Ta'an Kwäch'än Council describes the 1956 amalgamation as a unilateral decision by the Department of Indian Affairs. The Ta'an Kwäch'än re-established themselves as a distinct First Nation on February 14, 1987, recognized by Indian Affairs in 1998.
The city has held the Sourdough Rendezvous winter festival every year since 1962, with events such as flour-packing contests. The same year the Old Log Church became a museum.
Led by Elijah Smith, the Yukon Native Brotherhood was formed in 1968 to press for a modern treaty. In 1969 Judy Gingell became band manager of Kwanlin Dün and a founding director of the Brotherhood.
A Yukon First Nations delegation led by Elijah Smith presented Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa with Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow, a statement of land claim grievances and a proposed approach to settlement. It opened the negotiations that led to the 1993 Umbrella Final Agreement.
Canadian National Telecommunications bought the Whitehorse Telephone Exchange in 1958, and in 1979 Whitehorse became home of Northwestel, a northern-based telephone subsidiary. Sold to BCE in 1988, it became the dominant communications provider in northern Canada.
Collapsing metal prices closed the Faro mine and shut down the White Pass & Yukon Route in 1982, costing Whitehorse jobs and its rail link to the sea. The railway later reopened only for tourist excursions from Skagway.
The 1,600 km Yukon Quest sled dog race between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, Alaska, which alternate as start and finish, has been run every year since 1984. Yukon College opened a new $50-million campus in 1988, and the Yukon Arts Centre opened in 1992.
1993 – today
Final and self-government agreements, new institutions and national events.
Yukon First Nations, Canada and Yukon signed the Umbrella Final Agreement in 1993, the framework for individual land claim and self-government agreements; the first four final agreements were signed the same year and became law in 1995. Judy Gingell, chair of the Council for Yukon Indians, was a signatory and later served as Commissioner of Yukon from 1995 to 2000.
The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre opened in Whitehorse in 1997, presenting the Ice Age land of Beringia and the culture of Yukon First Nations. The same year, the first ancient ice patch artifacts were found in the southern Yukon mountains.
The Ta'an Kwäch'än Council signed its final and self-government agreements on January 13, 2002, and became self-governing on April 1, 2002. Its traditional territory covers about 12,079 km², including 796 km² of settlement land. In 2003 the Yukon Act was amended to make Yukon the first territory to take formal control of its lands and resources.
Kwanlin Dün First Nation, whose traditional territory overlaps with the Ta'an Kwäch'än's around Whitehorse, concluded its final and self-government agreements in 2005. Kwanlin Dün and the Council of Yukon First Nations both have offices and cultural spaces in downtown Whitehorse.
Whitehorse hosted the 2007 Canada Winter Games, the first territorial capital to do so. It has also hosted the Arctic Winter Games several times.
The Whitehorse Star, which had served the community for 124 years, published its final issue on May 17, 2024, leaving the Yukon News as the city's main local paper. About 70 per cent of Yukon's population now lives in Whitehorse, and 16.3 per cent of city residents are Indigenous.
About this timeline
Whitehorse lies on the Yukon River in the overlapping territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council, whose Southern Tutchone, Tagish and Tlingit ancestors camped here for thousands of years. It began in 1898 as a stopping point for Klondike stampeders past Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids, became a railway and riverboat town in 1900, and was transformed by the Second World War. It replaced Dawson as Yukon's capital in 1953, and Yukon First Nations' modern treaties have reshaped governance since the 1990s.
4 moments on this page carry a government record note.
FAQ
It began in 1898 as a stopping point for Klondike prospectors and became a permanent settlement in 1900, when the White Pass & Yukon Route railway was completed. It was incorporated as a city in 1950.
In 1953, when the territorial capital moved from Dawson City.
The overlapping traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council. Their ancestors include Southern Tutchone, Tagish and Inland Tlingit people.
The town grew just below the Whitehorse Rapids on the Yukon River, one of two major obstacles for gold rush boats, and shares their name.
No historic treaties were signed in Yukon. The Umbrella Final Agreement of 1993 began a series of modern land claim and self-government agreements, signed between 1993 and 2006.
Written from the sources linked on each moment: the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Parks Canada, Library and Archives Canada, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, provincial and city archives, and others. Where governments acted wrongly, we say so and note whether it has been officially acknowledged, is established by the record, or is disputed. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will fix it.
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