Skagway-The Gold Rush Gateway

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We arrived in Skagway about 7:00 in the morning. It was another of those early wakeups for me. I gave up trying to get back to sleep at 4:30 and headed up to deck 14 to see the scenery. The further north we've gotten the longer the daylight has been. It didn't get dark until about 11:30 and at 3:00 AM it was rather light. By 4:30, it was definitely daylight. The ship traveled ever more slowly as we got closer to Skagway because the waterway got very narrow.

Skagway was high on my personal list of places to visit because I've always been interested in the gold rush days and the adventures of the propectors in this rugged part of the world. Reading Jack London's books as a young guy stoked that interest. In a 2 year period, 100,000 men headed here to try to get rich finding gold. Only about 30,000 made it to the gold fields of the Klondike and then only a couple hundred actually struck it rich. During the gold rush, the population of Skagway was around 30,000. Now the population is less than 1,000. Talk about hardy people. They arrived in Skagway by steamship. The Canadian government ruled that each man had to bring in one ton of food and supplies to keep starvation to a minimum. After arrival they had to pack that ton of stuff 40 miles through the mountains via White Pass or Chilkoot Pass. After the 40 miles they arrived at Lake Nelson, where they built their own boats to cross the lake and 500 miles up the Yukon River to the gold fields. Makes a triathlon seem like a day at the beach.

That difficult journey on foot through the mountains is why they built the railroad we would ride, the White Pass and Yukon. It was completed in 1-1/2 years to Lake Nelson in the Yukon, making the journey much, much easier. Of course by then, the gold claims has pretty much petered out.

The train ride was our excursion today. It would take us to White Pass and back down to Skagway, about a 40 mile, 3-1/2 hour trip. The scenery on the trip up there was magnificent. We were even able to see a small part of the foot trail the stampeders walked in 1897.

After getting back to Skagway, we walked around downtown and decided to make a stop at the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel. No brothel nowadays, but they dress in clothing of the period and celebrate the old days when the prospectors were able to satisfy all their carnal needs. It was a bit of a tourist trap, but still fun.

After this leisurely day, we enjoyed another excellent dinner on board the ship and checked out a couple of the bars, pretty much behaving ourselves for a change.

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Photos

Skagway (3)
The rock wall at the dock in Skagway is full of hand painted signs, mostly about cruise ships

Steel Cantilever Bridge
Closed in 1964, Thank God!

Inside the Red Onion
Notice the paintings of the painted ladies behind the bar

Comments

[Jan Kribs]

"Painted Ladies"?
Leave it to Bob & Dan to seek out The Red Onion Saloon and Brothel - dream on, boys!!

[Lauren Wuchter]

Woohoo!
Great pictures, Alaska looks beautiful! And of course great looking people too!