How did Miles Canyon and Whitehorse Rapids affect travel on the Yukon River during the gold rush?

During the Klondike gold rush, Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids served as significant physical obstacles to travel on the Yukon River. Gold seekers traveling north from Skagway, Alaska, would construct crude boats or rafts on Bennett Lake to float downstream, but these treacherous features forced a break in their journey.12

Because of these dangerous conditions, the area became a critical bottleneck for transportation. To bypass the canyon and rapids, the White Pass and Yukon Route railway was constructed to connect Skagway to Whitehorse. Consequently, Whitehorse emerged as the northern terminus for rail transport and the southern head of river navigation, where passengers and freight were transferred onto riverboats to continue the journey downstream to Dawson. Today, these historic rapids are submerged beneath a reservoir created by a hydroelectric dam.1324