Day 5 - Skagway

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An early morning arrival in Skagway finds Cecil still a little groggy from all of the previous day's activities, so Deb heads out into Skagway on her own until he can catch up. At the port the Skagway cliffs are covered in ship and captain's names dating back to the early 1900's. It became a tradition, and many of the cruise ships who port here have their ship and captain's names painted on the rocks. The story says that the more highly a ship's crew thought of their captain, the higher they painted the names. I have no idea how some of those got up there - it looks pretty precarious!

Skagway is a cool little historic town that has a very rustic and authentic feel to it. Less than 1,000 people now populate the town, but during the Gold Rush there were as many as 30,000! The White Pass & Yukon Railroad was built in 1898 to transport people up to the top of the pass and into the Yukon so they could then head another 550 miles inland to the gold. This railroad still takes passengers up on a scenic 41 mile roundtrip journey to the Summit of White Pass, at 3,292 feet.

Skagway only gets about 27 inches of precipitation annually, so the college students from the Yukon come down here for spring break. They consider it the "Fort Lauderdale" of the north. Today is a good example of that, as it is around 56-58 F and the locals are seen walking around in sundresses and flip/flops or t-shirts and jeans, while the rest of us tourists are zipped up in our coats.

Deb does some geocaching while waiting for Cecil to join her and drops her backpack into the little creek! Fortunately, it hits a little eddy and doesn't float away, and the leather keeps everything relatively dry. At another geocache in town, she catches some other folks doing the same thing.

Once Cecil joins up, we go over to the famous Red Onion Saloon, Skagway's most exclusive bordello during the Gold Rush. There we take a tour into the inner sanctum of the brothel with one of the Red Onion's painted ladies. It was an eye-opening experience! After the tour we sit down for an Alaskan Brew and a snack before heading over to the train station to board the WP & YR.

The train ride is very scenic and informative, with narrative along the way. We see several black bears while on the ride, and cross over into the Yukon at the top. Once back down in town, we head over to the Skagway Brewery to enjoy dinner and a microbrew sampler. After dinner, a walk through town and then back to the ship for an early turn-in. Tomorrow we hit Glacier Bay early in the morning and we want to get a good view up on deck!

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Photos

The ladies of the Red Onion
Singing "Gonna Get Married" :)

White Pass & Yukon Railroad
Heading up to the Yukon pass