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In August 1896, a Tlingit man named Skookum Jim was washing a pan in a tributary of the Klondike River then he discovered strips of gold so thick that they looked "like cheese in a sandwich". One of the greatest adventures in North America history was on. By the next October, Skagway provided one of the cheapest access points to the Yukon and became a thriving town of 20,000 inhabitants. From Skagway, the stampeders drove their pack horses mercilessly along the Rocky but relatively gradual White Pass Trail. Over 3000 horses perish along this route in the winter of 1897 to 1898, earning the name Dead Horse Trail. On the other side of the mountains, miners built boats on Lake Bennett and floated north on the Yukon River to the diggings. To prevent food riots, Canadian Mounties would not let prospectors into the Yukon without a half a ton of food and supplies; to carry this a person might make 30 or 40 trips over the pass. When the Nome gold rush began in about 1900, Skagway dwindled, surviving only as a port and the terminus of the railway over the White Pass.