Skagway by Train

Look who was in Skagway today!

Easy to mistake  big boat at the end of the street for an alien craft.

A glorious day!  Blue sky, warm temps, a narrow gage train ride back to an earlier time and its counterpoint: scads of cruise ship tourists. Skagway, at the end of a mountain road and a mountain rail line, also sits at a deep water port on the Inside passage. . .perfect for the big cruise ships.  The big ships sit at their docks right at the end of the main shopping street giving the appearance of a very large modern hotel right in the same neighborhood of buildings dating back into the eighteenth century. 

Our driver, DJ, and a new driver on the White Pass and Yukon Route

This morning,Robin and I caught  a motor coach down through Carcross to Fraser where we boarded a narrow gage train that threaded its way through the mountains to Skagway.  Our motel is just down the street from the rail station and out bike is. . .get this. . .in a garage locked up under the motel.  The ramp down reminded me of similar situations in Mexico and a funky curved and banked ramp in Memphis with Guns 'n Hoses a few years ago. Others on our bus included an RVing couple form Florida (six months in Florida, six months wandering with their fifth wheeler. . .), two young ladies from England, a young couple from Germany, and a young driver in training from Colorado who worked her way through the U. of Colorado driving buses in Bolder. After a stint in New Zealand, she and her partner decide to come to the Yukon and her driving experience landed her a job driving from Whitehorse to Skagway.  Today's trip was her final trial run.  In a few days, she'll be the pilot. 

The General Store in Carcross, between Whitehorse and Skagway.  Part of this building dated to the late 1800s.

Robin found gold in the General store.

Some new, some old

A little of everything

Part store, part museum

Dwelling next door to the General Store

Bridge at Carcross

This train was full for the ride to Skagway

Just in case

Lava fields, snow, and reflections

Laying this track was no easy task

I got to hang out from the platform and check out the rest of the train

We were actually in the first car

Downtown Skagway

Prospectors had to have  ton of supplies to get access to the north.  Dogs, mules, and horses accompanied the gold nuts who thought, at least at first, they'd get to the gold fields, bend down, pick up baseball sized nuggets, and be rich.  Only a small percentage of these crazed albeit intrepid souls found any gold at all.  The National Park in Seattle commemorates the start of the gold rush trail.  Skagway has the second National Park location and their center complete with walks, homes, memorabilia, and displays, completes the NP nod to this grand chapter in US history.

In one year, at the height of the gold rush, ten thousand small boats were launched on the lake system north of Skagway on their way to the gold fields.    Skagway, of course, was not the end destination for all those prospectors but from there they were off to the Yukon Territory. The Alaska Highway, the main overland route to these regions, was built mainly by the US military beginning in 1942 as a part of the war effort.  Before that, the route would have been similar to the pathways know to folks like Lewis and Clark.

A scene from the past depicted in the NP display

A youg man and his wife just opened this motorcycle rental shop.  He's a sidecar bug and wants to spend next winter in S. America with a KLR rig yet to be built.  I steered him to Claude stanly and he gave me some great tips for exploration in Alaska.   Nice encounter.

  Tomorrow, goal number one will be to find a car wash.  No  bath since NY. . .thanks for the reminder about the residual salt, Tony.  And then it is off to Dawson City and the last part of the trip that is primarily Canada.