Skagway, Alaska

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At White Pass Summit, we entered Skagway, Alaska, USA.

I think the first thought that came to both of us was that we never expected to set our shoes in Alaska again. 😊



It felt different driving into the US.😊 Border formalities greet you just before you enter the town. Fairly empty & we got through fine. Just had to part ways with imported tomatoes & bell peppers. Hmm..Will have to be more thoughtful in the future.😊 And we paid some $12 to enter the US. I am not sure why I did not ask the reason for the charge. Anyways, my head goes blank in front of a US authority. 😞



Skagway: A very cute little town. One drive on broadway st & you have seen it all as a tourist. The place is filled with jewellery shops selling diamonds. Why on earth would there be such shops in Skagway?



We looked up our lodge and was glad to see it was fairly close to town. Well, the whole town is mainly within 4-5 streets. But I did not like the feel of it. It was a bar basically. They had added a few rooms upstairs. But it was quiet and we were ok as there was a seperate entrance to our room.



The room was not great, but S was ecstatic seeing a bed. 😊 But the ecstacy was short-lived as G pushed both of us out. It was Alaska. What were we doing indoors? 😱



With help from the visitor center, we visited the sheep creek. We were told that the salmons had started their journey upstream. We stopped by and saw quite a few salmons jumping out of the water. S was so excited to see the salmons. We spent a while there. And spotted the whitepass summit railroad. We had to pacify S that we were going to take a ride next morning.



Walking back into town, it was surprising so crowded & we now noticed why. There were 3 huge cruise ships docked. One amongst it was Disney & S loves Micky.😊 There was a huge Mickey in front of the ship and we got pretty close to it.



I later learnt that Skagway was the perfect port as the water is very deep(a canyon-120 ft deep below water surface) even very close to the dock. Perfect for cruise ships.



After some walking around and some souvenir shopping, we hesitantly walked back to the bar...er...the hotel. We would probably not recommend it even if every other place charges you at least 20%!m(MISSING)ore(for good reasons). The bar below was buzzing now and I was so grateful for the private entrance. But when we reached our room, it was just great. We could hear the loud music from below.😞 Definitely not the best cozy place to sleep.



Saturday, 30th july
We woke up early to be at the train station on time. 7.00 am. We were one of the many tourists on the white pass summit scenic railroad trip. It is THE premier attraction in Skagway.
It was quite an interesting ride & the landscape was fantastic. At the White pass, S was intrigued by the change of engines from back to front. And she was thrilled inside the tunnel. Made sure to stay inside & hug one of us😊

The train station was near sheep creek & we stopped by to see more salmons. We saw so many salmons inside huge cages. We later heard that it was their spawning area & they were being counted.
Afterwards, we drove to Dyea(read "die ya"). We saw harbor seals, eagle & lots of salmons. We also saw the Chilkoot trailhead. The famous trail used by thousand during the klondike gold rush in 1897.

S fell asleep & G opted to stay in the car while I got to know the entire story of the Gold Rush at the Dyea townsite ranger tour. The story of how the landscape formed was more intriguing than the landscape itself. We later drove up to the Tidal flats where we saw spawning salmons. Seemed like Pink salmons to me. I saw so many with humps, which I read somewhere to be features of pink salmons. There was so many of them that the river looked black. I saw a few dead ones too.

But the highlight was to view a bald eagle hunting. It was very interesting to observe. The Eagle sat as if he was just relaxing. Then he suddenly flew up & around. Just made one circle. Just as I saw this circular flight, the expected happened. It flew down effortlessly, grabbed a fish & flew back to its sand bar.
This is Skagway's history.

Today was a no-cruise-ship day. And it showed. The streets were almost empty. Many shops remained closed. Or maybe it was saturday. And they closed earlier. But definitely not that interesting.

Night stay at the hotel was noisy. But we still managed to sleep.

We need to have an early start the next morning. 8.00 am ferry to Haines, AK. But since we had a vehicle, we had to check in 1.5 hrs earlier. It is not fun when nothing is open that early. Not even Starbucks. 😞

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Photos

Just beyond the White pass
Entering AK