The coldest official temperature recorded in Fort Selkirk was –60 °C (–76 °F) on February 3 and 4, 1968 at the Pelly Ranch Farm.
Robert Campbell established a Hudson's Bay Company trading post nearby in 1848.
Resenting the interference of the Hudson's Bay Company with their traditional trade with interior Athabaskan First Nations, Chilkat Tlingit First Nation warriors attacked and looted the post that summer on Saturday, August 21, 1852.
The fort was rebuilt about 40 years later and became an important supply point along the Yukon River.
Fort Selkirk was essentially abandoned by the mid-1950s after the Klondike Highway bypassed it and Yukon River traffic died down.