August 25, 2009 - Skagway

Today we took the Fast Ferry to Skagway to spend the day.  Here is our boat with Haines in the background:

Coming into the port of Skagway – this is what thousands of gold rush stampeders saw over 100 years ago.

 

Another view of coming into port.  Those ships you see are the HUGH cruise ships – about 12 stories above water.

The National Park Service has a very big presence here in Skagway.  They have restored 17 buildings and are working on restoring more of them.  Many of the buildings are either museums or shops.  So we spent some time in the museums, walking the streets, seeing some of the shops, and seeing some of the Park Service movies.  Skagway became a town during the gold rush time of the late 1800’s.  It was only of the drop off points for the stampeders.  From here, they had to go over the White Pass to Dawson.   Since Dawson is in Canada, the Canadian government became concerned that many people would not be prepared for the journey.  So they required each person to carry a year’s worth of supplies.  Here is the list:

Can you imagine!!  It took several trips to carry these loads thru the passes.  Oh my!

Some of the buildings – check out the wooden sidewalks:

 

This is the Mascot Saloon that was just restored.  When they dug up the floor, they found over 19,000 artifacts buried.

More buildings:

 

How about these ladies (?):

It was an interesting day!!

August 29, 2007 – White Pass Railroad and Skagway

What an exciting day!

The bus picked us up at 7:30 AM at the Campground and off we went. Our first stop was Emerald Lake:






Isn’t this beautiful! The house is private property – can you imagine viewing this lake every day!!

Our second stop was Carcross. We were to board the train here but they had so much water that some of the tracks and also houses were flooded.

The train station: One of the flooded homes:

Notice how high the water is at the railroad bridge:


Carcross is a really neat town. Many of the original (100 years old or more) homes still stand and are occupied. If we come back to Alaska, I would love to spend more time here.

Our next stop was Frasier, BC to hop on the train – The White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge – to Skagway. This train route was originally built in the early 1900’s because of the gold rush and a way to ship the gold to the lower 48.

The views were amazing!

The top of the White Pass:

The original route of the gold seekers (very narrow):

The view of the port of Skagway:

Coming down the mountain into Skagway:

Skagway – notice the cruise ships (there were 6 of them here today):

Old town Skagway:

We spent a couple hours here walking around and viewing the sites. It is a very touristy town. We had originally planned on taking the road to Haines, then the ferry to Skagway and then the road to Whitehorse which is what we will do next time. We did have a great lunch at the Skagway Fish Company with our tour guide. I just love hearing people’s stories...

Our ride back was on the tour bus with a stop at the Carcross Desert – the smallest desert in the world!

And tomorrow we head on down the road.