Skagway

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I forgot about the wind. When Walter warned me about bears in the Carcross Desert and suggested the little patch of sand between the water and the warehouse, I forgot about how windy it was that afternoon. And I had even read an information plaque somewhere about how the Tagish First Nation name for the spot translates to “always windy spot” or something like that. I was woken several times by the wind smacking the side of my tent into my face as I slept. This, of course, was the result of my having anchored the tent at each corner with tent pegs anchored in sand. Hmmm. At the first flutter of wind, they came up and were free to move about and cause slack, letting the tent walls sag enough to smack me in the face. But I didn't suffer too badly, and the wind never got ferocious as it had been earlier in the day. And it would have been too much of a trial to move it to a secluded spot in some trees down the bank somewhere. I just managed through it. But I will remember to consider that possibility next time. (And that will probably be after the Juneau trip. I had hoped to be able to drive to Teslin afterwards, but the boat returns after 8 in the evening. I won't want to drive for 2 and a half hours to reach Teslin. An hour to Carcross is probably going to be pushing it a bit.)



I got up quite early having gone to bed early in order to keep the tent from flying away, after realizing what I had done. But things don't really open very early in this part of the universe. So I had to figure out what to do. I decided to visit the desert in the early morning. It was more or less the same as the evening before when I arrived. I walked around in it for a while, and then just decided to head on out. I figured I had spent enough time putzing around that I could reach the Canada National Historic Site at Log Cabin, part of the Chilkoot Trail area, on the highway by the time it would open for the day. I had been led to believe there would be some kind of booth or site that would be manned by Parks Canada. I was wrong. Despite my Discovery Pass getting me access to the site, it turned out that anyone who goes there can have access to the site. There are only a few interpretive panels at the spot. I think there is also a hiking trail that eventually leads over the Chilkoot Pass, and maybe that is what I get access to with the pass.



In any case, my day was proceeding rapidly. It was a bit ominous given that I only had 106 kilometres to go to get to Skagway. And I was not all that excited to reach Skagway. I could only picture in my mind a big tourist trap, a la Las Vegas. I didn't fancy spending a lot of time there. However, there seemed no help for it.



Despite my best plans, I arrived in Skagway by about 10 in the morning and tried to figure out what to do. I first tried to find the office for the tour so that I could confirm my place. But they don't have an office in Skagway. It's in Haines. Hmmm... Well, I guess I'll be hoping that I have indeed gotten my place on the boat. When I don't have a ticket in my hot little hands, I am usually dubious until I am actually on my way. But they have my money, so I guess I am probably okay.



Then I went to the visitor information office here. I found out about a ranger led talk in the nearby historical site of Dyea. It turns out that Skagway isn't the spot where people got into that line one sees in pictures during the Klondike gold rush, heading over the Chilkoot Pass. Skagway is associated with White Pass, the other main route over the mountain ranges. White Pass is lower and was billed as easier for that reason. The only thing was that the snows got higher in the winter, and the pass got much muddier, to the point of impassibility, in the spring. Chilkoot, for all that it was straight up and much higher, was a better option. And who was in on trying to get people to go over the White Pass? None other than Skookum Jim. I really think that guy knew much more about what was going on than we are led to believe in the stories about the discovery of gold in the Klondike. He was just in too many places, affecting too many events.



Anyway, Dyea was at the base of the Chilkoot Pass. There was a native settlement there and eventually, as the gold rush took hold, a settlement catering to the stampeders as well. But, as the gold rush passed and moved on to Nome, the difficulties associated with Dyea became apparent and it faded and was abandoned in favour of Skagway. Chief among these difficulties was that Dyea's access to the ocean was a mud flat, where Skagway had a deep harbour. In addition, when the railway decided its eventual route, it was over the White Pass to Skagway. Dyea was left a backwater. And it was abandoned. Some buildings were taken down and moved. Others were scavenged for building materials or firewood. A few were just left to the elements. Eventually, the area came under the protection and administration of the National Parks System and has become a national historic site for the US. The rangers give walking tours and talks about its history.



It wasn't overly helpful to me, as I really would have liked to get a look at the pass somehow, but that wasn't to be. One thing I did learn was that Dyea and Skagway lie at the end of a fjord that was cut by a massive glacier. It receded at some point, and as a result the land has rebounded as the weight of the ice was lifted. The ranger told us that since the gold rush, the land has risen by 6 to 8 feet. In a hundred years. I found that a bit staggering.



I paid a visit to a nearby graveyard, dedicated to the people who had been killed in an avalanche that spring of the gold rush, 1898. The Tlingit people had warned the miners not to climb that day as the snow was precarious and could come tumbling down. But the miners wouldn't be deterred and went anyway, and about 70 were killed when the natives proved correct. They are buried near the old town site of Dyea. Not that it would be easy to tell. The town site has virtually disappeared. There are only a few rotting remnants left. All except one false front that has somehow survived the assault of the reclaiming forest. That was kind of odd.



Another cemetery sits at the end of Skagway's area, just before the land rises into the White Pass. In the cemetery lies a number of the first people who came to the area, including two of its most famous, even though I never heard of them. One was Frank Reid, while the other was Soapy Smith. Frank was the good guy and Soapy was the bad guy. They are what the Mounties worked so hard to avoid in Dawson City. Soapy was the local underworld leader. He had control of the criminal elements of Skagway. Many a stampeder lost part or all of his stuff to the criminals under Soapy's command. Soapy himself did a lot to seem like a good guy, offering to help out those stampeders get re-equipped, or to buy a ticket home. They often didn't realize he was the ultimate culprit in their losses. But Soapy's position was known to a lot of people, among them Frank Reid. He was basically the head of the local vigilante group, there being not much of a presence by the real law. The details are a bit murky, but it came about that one day a confrontation took place. Soapy and Frank both shot, and both shot at the same time. Frank was wounded in the crotch, but Soapy was hit in the heart. Soapy died instantly, but Frank lingered in awful pain for 12 days before succumbing to the wound. Frank Reid was lionized for ridding Skagway of the criminal network by cutting off its head. Soapy was demonized for being evil. It all is a bit too pat and pretty.



The ranger addressed that at one point in her talk. I don't think it was actually part of Dyea history (in fact I'm certain it wasn't), and I'm not sure how we got on the topic, but she told us that there has recently been some controversy about the incident. I guess some autopsy results showed that there were a number of bullets of different calibres in Soapy's body. Which would be impossible if one person had shot him once as he himself was wounded. Some wonder if perhaps the vigilantes, of whom Frank Reid was the leader, as a group took out Soapy. Then because Frank was mortally injured, they just heaped the heroics on him and tried to let it all be forgotten. In any case, Frank is still revered today. And he has a large tombstone in the Gold Rush Cemetery at the end of town.

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Photos

The Carcross "Desert"
The sand dunes that sit in the middle of the mountains seem anachronistic, but it's an interesting area.

Into the White Pass
There are lakes all the way up into the pass. One of them is the source of the Yukon River. It starts less than 50 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean. Because of the mountains in the way, the Yukon River travels flows almost 3200 kilometers into the Bering Sea.

The White Pass
This rugged pass has an almost alien look to it with its odd-shaped rocks and shrubby, scrubby plants.

Skagway Harbour
Skagway is a stop on the cruise ship circuit through the Inside Passage. It is everything one might expect from such a place: high-priced tourist crap, high-priced food, high-priced tour operators, and waves upon waves of avid cruisers who descend upon the town to lap it all up.

One Intact Remnant
This false front from one now missing building is one of the few remaining identifiable remains of the old town of Dyea.

An Old Foundation
The Dyea townsite is mostly filled with sunken foundations that make for treacherous exploring, and rotting timbers.

The Dyea Graveyard
The graves of 70 miners who ignored the First Naitons warnings of unstable snow in the Chilkoot Pass are in this graveyard. The snows came down in an avalanche and swept them away.

The Chilkoot Pass
It is possible to hike the Chilkoot Pass today. It is a three or four day trek that is quite rigorous. I wasn't going to get very near it the day I visited.

Frank Reid
Soapy Smith was the scourge of Skagway. He was bad, bad, bad. He had to go and Frank Reid took on that task. A shootout in the middle of town, in the tradition of a great western, left Soapy dead and Frank mortally wounded. Lionized as a great man, Frank Reid has a prominent place in the Skagway burial ground.