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Historic Carcross Hotels

by Murray Lundberg


Anderson Hotel (1901-1903)
Burt's Roadhouse (1899-1900)
Canadian Development Company Post No. 2 (1899-1901)
Carcross Inn (1939-1950)
Caribou Crossing Section House (ca.1899-1901)
Caribou Hotel (1903-present)
Caribou House (1901-1903)
Robson's Inn (1950-1956)
Scott Hotel (1903-1940)


Carcross hotels advertisement, 1913
The Daily Alaskan (Skagway), April 19, 1913



Advertisement - Roadhouse for sale The Bennett Sun,
January 20, 1900




Burt's Roadhouse

  • January 1900, for sale for $80 by owner J. H. Burt. It isn't certain that this roadhouse was right in Caribou Crossing, which is 27 miles from Bennett, not 21 miles - however, no other location seems as likely.





Carcross Inn



Caribou Crossing Section House

  • owned by the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad, initially used to house White Pass crews.
  • from 1899, several of the section houses were rented out to private contractors. It is believed that Caribou Crossing (Carcross after 1912) was one of the ones rented, to provide board both to itinerant travellers and railroad employees.



Anderson Hotel / Caribou Hotel


ANDERSON HOTEL (1901-1903)
CARIBOU HOTEL (1903-1998)

Caribou Hotel, December 1995

The Caribou Hotel, December 1995
(Photograph © 1995-2023 by Murray Lundberg)



Canadian Development Company Post No. 2

  • 1899, built on the right limit (south shore) of the narrows at Caribou Crossing.
  • October 8, 1899, application for liquor licence; licence #21 issued.
  • effective May 1, 1901, all assets of the Canadian Development Company were taken over by the British Yukon Navigation Company, a division of the White Pass & Yukon Route.
  • June 15, 1901, the building was sold by the British Yukon Navigation Company to Bishop William Carpenter Bompas, for $250.
  • "... the house had been used as a road-house, also a post office. The house was a long, one-storied loghouse standing about fifty yards above the lake, and about the same distance from its margin. There were two good-sized rooms in it, one with large tables and benches, also a small room or office, over which we saw in large letters the words ‘Bar Room.’ The other large room had evidently been used as a sleeping apartment, as it contained bunks on each side with very shabby broken-down shelves or bedsteads for the occupants. There was also an office with high desk, intended for whoever took the duties of postmaster, and a fairly good-sized kitchen. The house was not attractive in any way, either from its present condition or the suggestiveness of its past the place was infested with mice and squirrels. Other reminiscences of road-house convivialities were evident in the scent of tobacco smoke and whiskey which haunted the apartments. The space round our house was strewn with empty whiskey bottles; an Indian boy soon cleared this for us We paid him 50 cents an hour, and by working strenuously for the space of three hours, the bottles were carted off and flung into the lake." (Archer, A Heroine of the North, p.170).
  • in 1903, "The flooring boards were half an inch apart; so shrunken were they that it would be easy to rip them up and lay them down closer together. Then the roof; it was papered, with battens across the paper. Ventilation is carried to excess." (Archer, p.180).



Caribou House / Scott Hotel


CARIBOU HOUSE: (1899-ca.1903)
SCOTT BROS. HOTEL: (ca.1903-ca.1905)
HOTEL SCOTT (ca.1905-1936)


A Guide to Carcross