Seeking the Trails of Skagway Stampeders

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We had another restful night’s sleep before awakening to the early sun of the north in Skagway, a port I haven’t visited before; but, Sharon has been here several times. Breakfast was again in the Lido, and again I stuck with the Swiss Muesli. Sharon enjoyed French toast for the first time on this cruise. She commented how amazing it is that there are so many people that we are meeting who are cruising for their first time, and many more who are coming to Alaska for the first time, and quite a few fall into both categories. What must they think of Sharon when she tells them that this is her seventh trip to Alaska, or that she’s done over two dozen cruises before, or that we are going on a two week Alaskan cruise on the Statendam just a couple days after this one disembarks? We also have to chuckle at some of the newbies like the woman that both ordered soup at the table and then when Sharon didn’t turned and asked her if it was possible not to order it. She of course told them you can order what you want so one of them asked to change her order to remove the soup she want.

We assembled on the pier, found our bus and driver/guide, and were on our way. Skagway was one of two entry points for the Yukon trail, for those hardy gold rushers, or “Stampeders” as they are called here. Most who came had no idea what they were getting into, and most would not get rich finding gold. Our driver pointed out the general store in Skagway, and its sign “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” And the religious denominations here are a bit different than most places; either, you go to the red church, the green church, the brown church or the blue church. There is one school house for grades K thru 12 and this year’s graduating class had one girl and two boys. The size of Skagway doesn’t stop it from having an international airport. Though; with the Canadian border just 20 miles away. We were heading by bus up White Horse Pass.

We say this sign indicating the road to Dyea, the other formerly preferred route to the Yukon (because it was shorter); but, after an avalanche killed a group of 100 miners that was to change. There were many people eager to take advantage of these stampeders, who were naïve in many ways, their good judgement impaired and blinded by the gold-bug. One vendor sold gophers to those seeking easy riches assuring the newcomers that his gophers had been trained to seek out gold and do all of the digging for you. One huckster named Soapy Smith pedaled bars of soap for $2 apiece on the possibility that it might be wrapped in money. His audience of course was not that gullible, until one from their numbers would raise his hand and say that he’d try his luck, and low and behold his bar of soap was wrapped in a $5 bill. A murmur in the crowd mulled over what had just happened, then a second man would say “Give me a bar.” He joyfully waved the $50 bill for everyone to see. This brought throngs of people wanting to be clean. Sometimes one of the frenzied crowd might get a $1 bill; but, Soapy Smith shared huge profits with his partners (the first two men who bought the soap). You might have thought that the Stampeders would catch on or turn on Soapy Smith; but, he was quite a personable personality and while he didn’t refrain from conning people out of their many through his wits and cunning, he drew the line at violence, strong-arm techniques or robbery. Some of his popularity came from charitable giving and works he did for the poor, giving him a sort of Robin Hood mystique. But there was one fellow adversary in the townsfolk that felt Soapy Smith was bad for Skagway and wanted him gone. He tried many times to get Soapy Smith drummed out of town; but, you know what they say about a bad penny. After two of Soapy’s compatriots violated his code of ethics and beat up and robbed two Stampeders, which was the final straw. With townsfolk sentiment turning against him, his adversary challenged Soapy Smith to a duel. As was true with most old west duels, neither man survived his wounds. Soapy Smith was killed immediately and his challenger 12 days later from infection.

Leading out of Skagway we were passing through a temporal rain forest. We crossed the William Moore suspension bridge, an engineering marvel that crossed a ravine and earthquake fault line. The bridge is suspended from one side only. In the event of an earthquake the bridge itself is designed to swing either way as needed to survive. The road is quite wide for a one-lane road in each direction. There are metal posts rising from the end of the shoulder on each side at regular intervals and rising up thirty feet or so where they bend and point horizontally towards the center of the road. This horizontal portion of the metal rod is painted red towards the outside and white closest to the road crown. It’s for the snow plow drivers to guide them as they plow their way up and down the mountain. The local saying is “In the white, you’re alright. In the red, you’re dead!” We reached the summit of the White Horse Trail at over 3,000 feet. Our driver pointed out to pay attention to many of the trees, especially those exposed most to the elements. They would have limbs on just one side; while, the side most exposed to the wind would be barren. The term for this phenomenon is “flagging”. Beyond the summit lay a rolling rocky mostly flat area stretching off into the distance and a mountain top lake also imbued with rocky boulders. We were beyond the US-Canadian border in the “international zone” in an area that the Stampeders called “Tormented Valley”. During the heyday of the Yukon Gold Rush the Canadian government legislated that any stampeders heading into the Yukon needed to bring with them one ton of supplies, including sufficient food to last one year. This required many trips up the pass we’d just come to assemble the supplies at the “Log Cabin” before crossing the rocky boulder laden land leading towards the Yukon. Once they reached the Yukon River they would need to build a raft to float the remaining 500 miles to the gold fields where they hoped to strike it rich, only to find that most gold yielding strikes had already been claimed. Our driver noted that there were two international out-houses in the international zone, pointing them out at the car pullout that we were passing. He said that they were “international” because “When you need to use them, you are ‘Russian’, when you’re using them ‘European’, and when you’re done, you’re ‘Finnish’.”

We’d left the temporal rain forest far below and had reached a level of some trees and rocks and boulders. The steep cliffs reached skyward with some snow and these were completely barren of vegetation. We then came across the Carcross Desert, the smallest desert in North America (for you trivia hounds). In the midst of all of this was indeed a desert with sands deposited from an ancient sea that once lay above this area, and the prevailing winds had gathered this sand into this small area, kept in place by the terrain sheltering it from the high winds and circulating ventilation that has kept it in place for eons.

We got our picture taken next to a sign welcoming us to the Yukon. As we arrived at caribou crossing our driver excitedly pointed out two mountain goats visible on the rocky face in front of us. Just as with someone shouting “Whale” the day before, we stretched our necks and strained to see the wildlife that we’d come here to experience. The goats were easy to spot, white against the brownish rock, their distinctive horn silhouetted nicely. Our driver, smiling continued, “I can always guarantee that you’ll see these goats when I bring people to Caribou Crossing because… (They’re not real). I overheard a visitor from a different bus say later that he’d quickly snapped three pictures of the goats, overjoyed by the experience, before he realized that they weren’t moving! At Caribou Crossing we had a lunch of barbequed chicken (leg and thigh) and half a baked potato. There was also Cole slaw, biscuits and all of the donuts that you can eat. The chicken was great; even, Sharon enjoyed the expertly cooked dark meat and for those of you that know Sharon, she only eats white meat if she can avoid the other. Likewise, the potato was good. But the donuts left quite a bit to be desired. They were small cake donuts, some with no coating, and some coated with sugar and cinnamon. After lunch we first walked through the taxidermy museum and saw many local creatures on display, from wolves, to caribou, to wooly mammoth! There were a couple of polar bears; although, I’m thinking Sharon isn't going to cross this one off her bucket list just yet. They had quite few bears actually, including the grizzly. We then stopped and saw some 6-week old Alaskan husky puppies and I held a couple. They were very cute. They are not the Siberian husky most people think of but a mixed breed that includes the Siberian husky, wolf, Doberman pincher, and even grey hound. These dogs are much leaner looking and all muscle. Adults used for sledding consume over 20,000 calories per day (about 7 or 8 times what humans typically need). Afterwards we each got a scoop of ice cream: I got chocolate chip and cookie dough (a new flavor for me) and Sharon got Rollo (a new flavor for her). Aren’t we both adventurous! Although there was no snow here, sled dog rides were being offered where eight dogs would pull six people and a musher around a one mile track (15 minutes) or twice (30 minutes) on a wheeled sled. It looked fun; but, we’ve both done this on Mendenhal glacier, and this couldn’t live up to that experience. I’m just saying.

We had experienced no traffic to speak of to slow our ascent to Caribou Crossing, so the driver had some extra time and took us on up to Emerald Lake. Due to the type of algae in the waters, we viewed the meandering lake and submerged sand bar as various shades of green, including deep emerald colored hues, to the tans where the sandbar seemed to divide parts of the lake. It was very pretty. On the way back down towards the train station we encountered a mother and cub grizzly along the side of the road. It was my first sighting of a grizzly in the wild.

We later stopped at Carcross and had the opportunity to walk around town. Some people got their passports stamped, and there were several places that you could do this. At one store a table had been set out front and there were two stamps on the table and you could stamp your passport yourself. But, what’s the point really (and is this even kosher?). We could have gotten more ice cream (24 flavors, including the two that we had already enjoyed). Sharon headed straight for the bakery that had been recommended by our driver. We decided to share a chocolate and peanut butter scone… a very, very large chocolate and peanut butter scone.

Every time that we’d stepped out of the bus, we were aware of one thing: It is very windy here. Temperature wise, it wasn’t particularly cold (well, if you’ve spent the last couple of winters in Ohio it didn’t seem particularly cold); but, the wind made it feel so. Even Sharon was wearing a jacket. We drove on to Fraser, where we boarded the train for the trip back to Skagway. Originally the railway had been built to aid access to the Yukon for the miners; but, it was completed after the boon was over. Sharon wanted us to sit on the right side of the train for the best viewing. Two cars had been reserved for our bus. Our car was named “Stewart River”, each car being named after a local body of water (either river or lake). Shortly after departing Fraser two black cubs and a mother were spotted along the tracks (on the right side as Sharon had suggested, although I don’t think wildlife was the scenic view she chose this side for). Some said that there were actually three cubs (I only saw two). It’s always exciting to see new wildlife, especially bears, and even though these were just momentary glimpses from a train, it was special, something you don’t experience in a zoo where you know that you’re going to see all of the animals that you want to see. There were a couple of other bear sightings on our train, but by the time we could have seen them the bear(s) had taken cover.

The train meandered down the steep three and one-half percent grade on the opposite side of the pass that the White Horse Trail wound. That trail rose about 1,500 feet in elevation in just a few miles. Many stampeders had been urged to buy horses to pack in their goods. Unfortunately the animals were in no condition to be hauling heavy loads over this terrain, and most of the Stampeders were not experienced and handling or caring for horses under these conditions. Many horses died, and many hundreds slipped and fell on the steep slopes leading to the summit so the area is call Dead Horse Gulch. The train descended through two long very dark tunnels. The railway cars are not illuminated so who can say what was going on as we passed through the darkness. We made one stop on our journey down to take onboard additional passengers who had flown in by helicopter to do a hiking tour and then return by rail.

We had missed trivia due to our lengthy tour. We rushed to dinner and I enjoyed my mozzarella and tomatoes; which, was superbly done. Mine was served with wedges of yellow tomatoes, round balls of mozzarella and just the right amount of olive oil and herbs. This far surpasses the thick stacked slabs of red tomato and mozzarella that I’ve had on two previous occasions with Holland America. I also ordered the Cheddar and Beer soup. Both were all vegetarian dishes. Sharon ordered the beef entrée. I ordered seafood again, this time the crab cakes. I didn’t think that would be enough to eat for me. Once before I’d gotten one small crab cake and was nearly done eating before others had even started; so, I also ordered the vegetarian jambalaya. My dinner was delicious. Sharon wouldn’t bite on the rum raison Baked Alaska and chose instead the watermelon sorbet. They had the banana crisp with vanilla ice cream again, one of my favorites.

We went to see the comedian at the show. Some of the act was funny, some sort of funny, and some wasn’t quite as funny as maybe it should have been. The couple next to us left early. He did do a bit with a guitar that was quite good, claiming that all songs from 1980 until now were basically the same four chords, and proceeded to show what he meant, and he definitely made his point. He then noted that maybe this wasn’t appropriate for ‘this’ audience (because of our advanced ages). He then claimed that he would demonstrate that all music from the 1960’s to 1970’s could be played with the same three cords; and, again he made his point.

After the show we went to the Queens Lounge where they were having a Game Show “Call My Bluff”. Three staff members offer definitions for four obscure words. We’d seen this on a previous cruise and it was hilarious. Some of the words this time were the same as that cruise, including “TITTUP” (the final word). The crew did stump the audience twice. I’m not exactly sure how one uses that final word correctly; but, I’m guessing that Sharon experienced tittup in Petra as she and Erin rode wildly towards the Treasury in their horse drawn carriage. Hmm, Word doesn’t seem to recognize “tittup” as a word, so you may need to take this with a grain of salt.



We were both a bit tired and decided to call it a day and get rested for a day of scenic viewing in Glacier Bay tomorrow.

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