One of the attractions of a visit to a wild, largely empty state like Alaska or the Yukon is

the passion people have for just being there. The Yukon is part of, and contiguous with,

the rest of Canada, but Alaska is full of people who want to get away from the 'Lower

48', and are quite happy at minus 30° for several months of the year. They get around

by floatplane more so than by car: there are few roads and even fewer railways (only

two routes, as far as I know, one from Skagway in SE Alaska, the starting point for the

trek to the gold fields in ‘98, to Whitehorse, where the narrow-gauge meets the Yukon

river system, and the other is the mainline from Fairbanks to Anchorage and just beyond

into the Kenai peninsula). This latter almost became a BBC commission: having seen our

pilot for a film of the rescue of a dozen Finnish steam locomotives from the scrapyard,

they wanted the director and me for a ‘Great Railway Journey’ on that 600-mile Alaskan

epic, with the late Carrie Fisher presenting. Alas, it wasn’t to be – it turned out that ‘ours’

was a stand-by commission in case any of the others in the series failed for whatever

reason, and they didn’t.

This remnant of the early days of locomotion in the Yukon sits outside one of the best

little museums I’ve ever seen - to life and survival on this harsh frontier, with a major

component being the history of the native peoples of the American Northwest.

One of the attractions of a visit to a wild,

largely empty state like Alaska or the

Yukon is the passion people have for just

being there. The Yukon is part of, and

contiguous with, the rest of Canada, but

Alaska is full of people who want to get

away from the 'Lower 48', and are quite

happy at minus 30° for several months of

the year. They get around by floatplane

more so than by car: there are few roads

and even fewer railways (only two routes, as far as I know, one from Skagway in SE

Alaska, the starting point for the trek to the gold fields in ‘98, to Whitehorse, where the

narrow-gauge meets the Yukon river system, and the other is the mainline from

Fairbanks to Anchorage and just beyond into the Kenai peninsula). This latter almost

became a BBC commission: having seen our pilot for a film of the rescue of a dozen

Finnish steam locomotives from the scrapyard, they wanted the director and me for a

‘Great Railway Journey’ on that 600-mile Alaskan epic, with the late Carrie Fisher

presenting. Alas, it wasn’t to be – it turned out that ‘ours’ was a stand-by commission in

case any of the others in the series failed for whatever reason, and they didn’t.

This remnant of the early days of locomotion in the Yukon sits outside one of the best

little museums I’ve ever seen - to life and survival on this harsh frontier, with a major

component being the history of the native peoples of the American Northwest.