Skagway, 7-13-13

---

We had such a great time in Glacier Bay, we wondered if this was the last of the great times on the Great White & Blue Coral Princess. What we didn’t expect how these small Alaskan towns would swell 3 to 5 times their size when a host of cruise ships would dock for the day. This happens almost every day. No wonder they survive on the tourist trade first and everything else is second for 3 or 4 months a year. In addition, only Skagway is available by road while the other two are only available by boat or seaplane.

Our first stop of the three town tour going south was Skagway, home of the WP&YR. This stands for White Pass and Yukon Railroad. This railroad is quite famous and historic in the post gold rush days of the town. We took a short bus tour of the town in a 1927 restored bus. The guide wore a costume reminiscent of the gold rush era and told stories of the famous con man “Soapy” Smith. Soapy would sell useless soaps and goods to the unsuspecting miners and gold seekers until the town hero shot him dead, only to die an agonizing death 12 days later. The town hero was in fact a criminal himself escaping justice from shooting a man in the back.

The train is the most visited railroad in all of the territory which climbs a short route from the town, climbing about 3500 feet to the summit of White Pass. In the gold rush era, this was the first and perhaps worst part of the Yukon Trail leading to the gold fields and the Canadian town of Dawson over 800 miles away. The train ride has an incredible view around every turn where often you may not see the cliffs below you as they drop off several hundred feet. Near the top was Dead Horse Gulch, where the miners had overloaded pack horses without proper shoeing resulting in thousands of horses meeting their death in the steep canyons and icy waters below.

---