Skagway to White Pass Summit

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Sidenote: picking photos for this entry was pretty much an eenie-meanie-mo kind of deal. I have so many photos from today, that this really is just a random sample haha

Wow, what a pretty day =)
We had a full day-trip planned for Skagway, and it didn’t disappoint!

We took a bus tour which brought us up to White Pass summit – stunning drive. Our driver was great; we got to hear all about the Gold Rush and how the train from Skagway to Whitehorse came to be. Mom and I had a good laugh – it took them all of 2 years to build this railway in the late 1890s… and Ottawa can’t even get its act together to build a tunnel thru the downtown-core. How sad.

Anyway, we stopped to take photos along the way – it’s quite impressive to stand in the valley, surrounded by mountains. We passed a short bridge – it’s designed to pull away on one side in case of an earthquake – pretty smart. We also noted all the huge orange markers coming out of the mountainside – apparently those are for the foggy and/or snowy days to make sure you stay on the road. No kidding… wouldn’t want to miss a curve on this street…

We passed thru Tortured Valley – I got some amazing shots of the mountains, with all the different colours and shades of blue. We then crossed the border control… although the border system is odd considering you only go thru Canadian customs a couple miles after the actual border, since the border itself is basically on a cliff lol.

We stopped at the Yukon Suspension Bridge, which oddly enough, is located in northern British Columbia…

The view down the Tutshi River and the gorge was great; standing over the river, you really get a sense of how powerful the rapids are down below.

On the way back to the bus, they would “stamp our passports” with a Yukon bridge stamp… touristy, but whatever. We had a nice talk with the staff member – we talked about how nice it was to come “home” (ie. Canada) even if it was just for an hour or so. Apparently the Canadians are always easy to spot on the cruise tours – we light up a certain way when you walk in because there are maple cookie samples haha. Oh dear.

The drive back down was great – we saw a black bear wandering along the highway. Awwww, they’ve quite cute (when you have a safe distance). The driver was nice and went slow so we could take pictures. Poor lil bear tripped over something and did a face plant into the snow haha.

We also stopped at the actual border, which provided a great picturesque valley in the background of our photos.

Last stop on the daytrip was panning for gold!! Ahaha, oh man, we had a blast. First they did a demonstration for us – the guy was quite the character, all dressed up in a grizzled-Alaskan style haha. He was fun.

We then got our little pan of pebbles and sand and headed out to pan us some gold! It’s tricky business you know, gotta do it just right! First you add some water, then you shake vigorously for about a minute… minimum of 30 seconds. The gold sinks to the bottom because it’s heavier than sand and rocks. You then have to tilt the pan at a certain angle and dip to have the water pour out and take the larger rocks with it. Finally you do this swirling motion over and over to get the rest of the sand to go down, and the gold flecks just stay up at the top of the pan. They stick to your finger, you tap it over a canister, and voila! Gold.

We actually got a nice little haul… 2.1 ounces each, which is apparently more than usual. Gold flakes are quite pretty – I had mine put in a little bead to wear as a necklace.

And that was pretty much our day. We got back to the ship around 4pm and just vegged on the boat the rest of the night. (Again, I’m a nerd and just watched a bunch of CNN when we were in the room). The show in the main theatre tonight was great – iBroadway! Hello show-tunes! The singers were actually pretty good! Quite cute too 😉

Tomorrow will be an early morning - we get to Hubbard Glacier at 6:30am... oh my.

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Photos

Fraser BC
Dinky little Canadian customs =)

Welcome (back) to Alaska
On our drive back down White Pass Summit

Comments

[Kerin Starr]

Loved the photos
We're heading to Alaska in May so I was very interested to read your blog and view the photos. I hope we're as lucky as you to see bears. Your photos are great.

[jewel89]

Thanks! Hope you have a great trip - May is a wonderful time to go