As we got closer to Skagway, the clouds hung lower and lower in the valleys.
At this point, the very top of a mountain was all that peeked through the clouds.
Above the valley floor, the terrain became very rocky and didn’t have many trees for a while before it eventually became treed again.
From this point on down into the valley, the road is lined with these big inverted “L” shaped poles. These are markers for the snow plows. Obviously they get a lot of snow here.
Skagway was one of the main Gold Rush towns for a couple years, 1897 and 1898. Because of the harbor here, it was one of the main routes to the Klondike.
Now it is a major tourist town. Three or four huge cruise ships are in port here every day from Spring through Fall.
Our RV park was right on the Marina and so this was our view from the motorhome. Not too bad.
These ships hold thousands of people which flood the eight blocks of downtown Skagway to buy souvenirs… expensive souvenirs.
I have never seen so many jewelry stores in such a small area in my life. It seems that diamonds are considered the main “souvenir” here, at least by the cruise ship crowd.
Even Starbucks shares their space with a diamond store. Most of the store is jewelry, with a Starbucks bar along one side. Ya' know, there is something just not right about that…
The ships in harbor are right at the end of the main street and appear as if they are about to steam right through the middle of town.
…And just in case you need a few barrels of money…
There is a lot of history in Skagway about the infamous, Jefferson “Soapy” Smith who was an all around con-man and thief. He ran roughshod over Skagway for nine months.
Soapy Smith was in the process of taking over the town of Skagway when he was opposed by Frank Reid, the town’s surveyor and his vigilante, “Committee of 101,” composed of the town’s people.
During a brief gunfight, Soapy Smith is shot in the heart and died and Frank Reid took a bullet in the groin, dying a couple weeks later.
At the local historic cemetery, there are two graves, one small marker for Soapy Smith just outside the cemetery,
and inside the cemetery, the town erected a large marker to Frank Reid which reads,
“He gave his life for the honor of Skagway.”
When our RV caravan pulled into the park, they were greeted by the reincarnate good guy, “Frank Reid” himself, ready to get all those RV’s parked.
Directly across the street from the park is the famous White Pass Railroad that will either take you for a three hour trip to the summit or for a full day trip into Whitehorse, Yukon.
We wanted to do the short trip until we found out it was $112 per person and decided to pass on it.
Spike, of course took us all on a tour of the area around Skagway.
We drove to the upper end of the bay on our way to the Chilkoot Trail.
The famous Chilkoot Trail was one of two ways that the prospectors had to go from Skagway to make their way to the gold fields. The other was the White Pass. Both ways were horribly difficult but the Chilkoot was shorter.
It was a 30 mile, extremely steep trail, with deep snow. The final part a 35% grade. So many men and horses were dying on the trail, that Canada passed a law that said everyone had to take 2,000 pounds of provisions with them, about one years worth of food.
Now for one man, not being able to carry 2,000 pounds through deep snow in extremely cold temperatures, it meant that he would carry 50 or 100 pounds for a ways, put it down and go back down for more, doing this over and over again till he had moved all 2,000 pounds for more than 30 miles, or died trying...which many did.
All of this because of the lure and lust for gold.
For more information on this, Google the Chilkoot Trail, or look for books in your library on it. It was a fascinating and amazing time in history.
This is an old picture in the National Parks Service office here is of the Chilkoot Trail during the height of the Gold Rush. The black vertical line is a row of loaded down prospectors climbing the Trail, trying to get over the pass.
When we arrived at the parking area where we were to begin a short walk to the start of the Chilkoot Trail, a Tour bus went buy, and suddenly stopped.
“Dawson Dolly” spotted Spike, and being old friends, stopped for a couple minutes to say, "Hi."
As you can easily see, she is part of the “local color” in Skagway. Dolly conducts her own tours around the local area and has a reputation for being a real character. (That was not hard to believe!)
We followed the sign along the river’s edge to where the trail begins.
Not to be outdone by some gold-crazed prospector, Don and I took the Chilkoot Trail as well… OK, I did the first half-dozen or so steps for the sake of a picture. Don went about 100 yards up the trail where you can sign a book saying you’ve been there.
It is an extremely rough and rugged trail. I would have killed myself in the first 30 steps, not to mention, 30 miles in deep snow.
After that, there were stops at a couple view points…
…one that overlooks the town of Skagway and the harbor with the cruise ships in it and the beautiful mountains in the background.
We visited Reid water fall…
…that has an old abandoned (we hope) bear cave near it.
Of course, no visit to Skagway would be complete without an evening at the “Days of ‘98 Show.”
This show began in 1923 when Princess steamships began bringing tourists to Skagway.
It is an evening of fun song, dance, recitation of Robert Service poetry and general all around clean silliness where they always drag one or two of the audience into the act, all the while telling the story of Soapy Smith and Frank Reid in Skagway.
Our embarrassed Hawaiian friend, Jim, didn't quite know how to handle the two “girls.”
Today most of our people took a side trip by ferry to Juneau and were gone for about 12 hours. Now, it is my job to walk the dogs. There were only four I had to deal with which included a pair of Sheep Dogs, a Sheltie and a Pug.
Max and the other three were great, very friendly and knew what they needed to do once I got them on the leash. However, Molly, the other Sheep Dog, wanted no part of the program and refused to leave the motorhome until her eyes began to turn yellow around 7:15 in the evening.
The other night Don and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary at the Stowaway Café, just a short walk from the motorhome on the Marina.
The food was great as was the view out the window.
Several from our group were dining in the next room and came over and sang, “Happy Anniversary” to us. They did it again outside of our motorhome later in the evening. Then the next day on the tour with Spike, everyone sang to us. We have never had that many “Happy Anniversary” songs sung to us in 26 years!
Now, as you might surmise, I am a very sentimental, hopeless romantic and searched for months to find this sweet and tender anniversary card for Don, which I brought along on the trip, just for this occasion.
Yeah, it pretty much cracked him up, too….
We leave early tomorrow morning for Whitehorse, Yukon for three days. There is a lot of activity there and Don has a really special costume planned for this one…
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