The capital of the Yukon at the edge of the subarctic — where Whitehorse sits in the upper Yukon River valley at 600 metres altitude between the Coast Mountains and the Yukon Plateau, the entire history of the city is the story of thresholds: the threshold between the Pacific climate and the subarctic interior (Whitehorse receives only 270 mm of rain per year — drier than Los Angeles — but temperatures range from -40°C in January to +35°C in July), the threshold of the Klondike Gold Rush (the Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids were the last serious obstacle between Skagway and Dawson City — the point where, in May 1898, 10 men drowned and 150 boats were destroyed in a single day before the North-West Mounted Police stationed an officer to inspect every boat before it proceeded), the SS Klondike (the largest sternwheeler ever built for Yukon River service — now a National Historic Site drydocked on the Whitehorse waterfront, where its 1,000 horsepower steam engine can be examined from a catwalk above the engine room) is the best-preserved Klondike Gold Rush vessel in the world, the Northern Lights (September–March, typically appearing 3–5 times per week from Whitehorse at 60.7°N latitude) are the most reliably visible from a capital city anywhere in the world, and the Yukon Wildlife Preserve (15 km north — 700 acres of boreal forest with free-ranging moose, caribou, muskox, and wolves) is the most accessible large-mammal wildlife experience in Canada
Whitehorse (28,000 city; 40,000 Yukon Territory) is the capital of Yukon Territory and the smallest territorial/provincial capital in Canada by population — but the largest city in the Canadian North, home to approximately 75% of Yukon's entire population. Whitehorse has the most extreme temperature range of any national capital in the world: from -40°C in winter to +35°C in summer.
The Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council have lived in the Yukon River valley for thousands of years. Whitehorse was founded in 1898 as the supply base for the Klondike Gold Rush — the last major gold rush in North American history, in which 100,000 people attempted the overland route from Skagway, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon. The White Pass and Yukon Route railroad (1900) replaced the deadly Chilkoot Trail and made Whitehorse the northern railhead for the territory. The city became the capital of the Yukon Territory in 1953 because the Alaska Highway (built 1942 by the US…