Skagway - Day 5

Skagway is an enigma. There are so many wealthy people here, yet to look around, most of what you see looks like poverty. There is abandoned and unlived in property everywhere and about half the houses that are lived in are shacks or extremely rundown. A great number of the employees here for the summer are foreign students. Most employers provide “housing” for these employees, which is often a run-down trailer in a campground, and in some cases tents. Dave and I walked through several campgrounds in the city and we saw lots of permanent type tents (white canvas on a platform with a tarp over the top. We noticed that some of these “tenants” leave food remnants outside their tents and then people wonder why there are more bear sightings this year.

We picked up our tickets this morning for the next leg of our trip, our cruise down the “Inside Passage” on the Alaska Marine Highway. We leave on Monday morning and cruise to Juneau, which will be the first of three stops for us. We need to be in line for the ferry at 5:45 am.

After lunch we went shopping. It is quite nice on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays here in Skagway because there are only one-two thousand people here from the cruise ships. We bought souvenirs for the grandkids (sorry kids you need to wait until we get home to find out what they are.) We also visited with old friends and acquaintances along the way. I saw Linda who is working for Broadway Jewelers and Joy who is working at Klassique Jewelers. I have not been in Skagway since 2005, but was here for visits and working with my daughter for 4 years straight. In 2005 I was here for 2 months, working at my daughter’s store, The Loom, while she was having her 3rd baby, Sofia. It was a lot of fun and the people here are awesome. It feels like I am home, visiting here.

I also found, Dennis Corrington, a well known man and owner of many stores and residential properties here in Skagway. Dennis is my son-in-law’s landlord and we have known each other since I first helped the kids negotiate a lease with him seven years ago. We had a great conversation and Dennis is one hell of a nice guy.

We walked again, from the house to the docks, after supper. We took pictures of some famous buildings on the abandoned streets. We watched one of the cruise ships as it left the docks. It just kept backing up until we thought it must be stuck in reverse (about 15 minutes). But it finally pulled out of the inlet head first. It had rained most of the day, but the sun came out in late afternoon and it was a nice night for a walk.

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