Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Sahara and Rachel
Hiking up to Reid Falls Cold, rainy and cloudy, typical Southeast Alaska weather dominated all of our days here in Alaska so far. This week Rachel and I toured Skagway with Sahara. At the Gold Rush National Park Museum we learned about a very famous and strong women, Harriet Pullen who became the "Mother of Skagway" and we watched a film about the madness that came to Skagway and Dyea from all the Stampeders seeking gold, starting in 1898.
The Gold Rush Cemetery and Reid Falls hike was a great way to spend a day enjoying the awesome power of mother nature's rushing waterfalls. In the cemetery, Soapy (Jefferson) Smith who was the town's most notorious con man is buried, along with the man who shot him, Frank Reid. Another hike took us to the Yakutania Point with great views of the Lynn Canal. The girls enjoyed climbing over all the rocks on the point and seeking treasures in Smuggler's Cove.
A day trip to took us to the Ghost Town, Dyea. A dirt road leads along the water and around the rocky outcroppings that form the coast. We needed to cross a one-lane bridge and went into the deep forest to hike in
Dyea
Dyea was once a bustling town, but after the gold rush, there was no reason why any one wanted to come here and the town died. Skagway survived because they had build a railroad into Canada. what was the old town. There is practically nothing that gives the hint that this was once a very busy and thriving town, where thousands of Stampeders came ashore and trekked over the Chilkoot Trail, up the Golden Staircase and into the Yukon. We hiked through Dyea and were very sorry that we had forgotten to use mosquito spray. The mosquito eat us alive.
On July 3rd we celebrated Sofia's 5th birthday with a family party. Cupcakes, especially the chocolate ones made the rainy day so much brighter. Because it doesn't get dark until around 11 pm, we had to stay up really late to see the fireworks display. The bombs bursting in air, came from the docks to the left of the harbor and more bursts came from a ship to the right. There were low clouds and some of the fireworks disappeared into them and just lit the sky with light. But most of the fireworks were totally awesome stars and rings of colors.
The Fourth was cloudy, cool and windy but we had no rain. Sahara and Asya were in the parade with the "Little Dippers" who won first place for the best performance, as
Asya and Sahara
Waiting to hear that their group won first place in Kiddies parade. they usually do every year. The parade was typical small town doings. The Canadians joined in, with Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Yukon Midnight Bagpipers marching along with all the rest of the local paraders. After the parade, there were all kinds of festivities for the young and the old. The kids all went to the Moore House where they held old-fashioned kids games including bean-bag toss, ring and stick rolling, three-legged races and egg balancing.
Skagway held it's annual Egg Tossing Contest, of which it holds the Guinness World Record for the largest group of people to engage in the activity. Rachel and I were partners and we lasted 5 tosses. Partners stand in the middle of the street about 3 feet apart to start and after each toss, each partner must take one step back until they are the street width away from each other up against the sidewalks. The contestants line Broadway for blocks and as you drop your egg, you drop off the line. We ended our day with a great Fourth of July Barbeque.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0357s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb