Snag In The Yukon, The Coldest Settlement In Canadian History
Snag Yukon/FacebookThe Snag airstrip office in the 1940s.
First settled during the Klondike Gold Rush, Snag was initially a modest trading post. Its significance grew during World War II when an airstrip was constructed as part of the Northwest Staging Route to facilitate the movement of aircraft to Alaska and the Soviet Union. This brought a brief period of activity and population growth to the area despite the extreme cold.
In early 1947, that extreme cold reached its record low. For eight days straight, temperatures fell below negative 58 degrees Fahrenheit, but by Feb. 3, even the huskies were feeling the cold. According to Canada’s History, when weather observer Gordon Toole went to check the thermometer at Snag Airport, he audibly gasped — and the gasp turned into icy crystals and fell to the ground.
The temperature had fallen to about negative 83 degrees Fahrenheit, by Toole’s estimate. He had to guess because it was so cold that the scale inside the thermometer had descended past the lowest mark. Officials would later confirm the temperature to be negative 81.4 degrees.
The extreme cold presented numerous challenges. Sounds traveled unusually far, airplanes were unable to land for days, and the ice became so hard that axes simply bounced right off of it. To this day, it remains the record lowest temperature in Canada, and this is perhaps the only reason most people know of Snag at all.
Following the war, the strategic importance of Snag diminished. The harsh climate, coupled with its remote location and limited economic opportunities, led to a decline in population. By 1967, the airstrip was abandoned, and the remaining inhabitants gradually relocated to more hospitable areas.
Today, Snag stands as a ghost town, a memorial to the coldest day in Canadian history.
