Vancouver south of Seattle has access to the interior without having to cross any mountain ranges.
Even allowing the Panhandle to handle goods destined for the Canadian interior and North the price is maxed out to what the locals can generate rather than the lowest bid also include quality service. They could invest in a port in northern BC, the construction takes 10 years and 100 years is the break-in period so whoever builds the road has that long to recover the expenses unless charging the taxpayers an excessive return on investment is the norm, ie for test holes for a diamond mine. ($17B profit/$500M investment/10 years)
The Yukon could re-mine all the old tailing piles and clean up all the gold this time and have the land reclaimed and the gold itself would pay for it if the proto site become the standard way of doing it. Once the streams are contoured so flooding deposits the gold in certain areas a company such as 'Mother Nature Inc. could work far upstream and loosen material that would be 'gold bearing' and a manufactured flood along with mother nature would mean the creeks could be cleaned out like a trap-line.