White Pass adopted in the 1st Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 1898, as identified in Geological Survey of Canada Report 1887-88, p.117B, and as labelled on Dept of Interior map "Canadian Yukon and Northern British Columbia", 1897.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"Named by William Ogilvie, DLS, in 1887 for the Honourable Thomas White, Canadian Minister of the Interior 1885-88. This pass is probably the same as Shasheki, a Tlingit name reported by W. H. Dall, US Coast & Geodetic Survey, and published in the 1883 Coast Pilot p.200.
This pass was on one of the principal routes to the Yukon taken by prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush 1897-1900. Although the White Pass route was less direct than the favorite, but steeper Chilkoot Pass route, it was used by more prospectors during the winter months."

Source: Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Professional Paper 567; US Department of Interior, Washington, 1967

Note that the White Pass & Yukon Railway runs through this pass. The Klondike Highway utilizes another (unnamed) pass about 1 mile west of here.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"White Pass ...appropriately known as Dead Horse Pass..." (from "Policing the Border in the Klondike Gold Rush, Canadian Geographic Magazine, Oct/Nov 1980, p.72)

Source: included with note