Near the White Horse Rapids of the Yukon River, Whitehorse began as an encampment in the late 1890s, a logical layover for gold rushers heading north along the Chilkoot Trail toward Dawson. The next great population boom came during the Second World War with the building of the Alcan—the Alaska-Canada Highway. Today this city of about 28,000 residents is Yukon's center of commerce, communication, and transportation, and the seat of the territorial government. It also has the only Tim Hortons café locations for hundreds of miles.
Besides being a great starting point for explorations of other areas of the Yukon, the town has plenty of diversions and recreational opportunities. You can spend a day exploring its museums and cultural displays—research the Yukon's mining and development history, look into the backgrounds of the town's founders, learn about its indigenous Alaska Native people, and gain an appreciation of the Yukon Territory from prehistoric times up to the present.
