3 days in Skagway–part 1

Skagway is a small town on the inland passage that served as a jumping off place for the gold rushers. This was the point where many folks arrived, and the town was 10,000 souls in the years 1897-98. It was also the start of the arduous journey of many hundreds of miles to the actual gold fields. Prospectors arriving in Skagway faced the daunting task of carrying their gear and supplies over the mountains into the Yukon, and the story is one of unbelievable courage and determination. Today, Skagway is mostly a tourist attraction, a place where cruise ships stop and buy souvenirs and trinkets, but there is still a lot of history to be found, and some really neat things to do and see. I started down the long hill into Skagway in fog and cold rain… not an auspicious start. Lots of snow still on the ground, and many lakes and streams still clogged with ice.  

  

Crossed through US customs painlessly, and I was once again back in America! Skagway is the first Alaskan city I touched. Lots of historic buildings, and a large harbor where it is common for 4 cruise ships to be in port each day. The boat people all hit the streets for a few hours, then head back to the ships for evening departures. A few pix from town… can you say “trapeza de tourista”?

  

  

RVers, on the other hand, come to stay a while, and there are several RV parks in town. Our little group, Jon and Sue, Dave and Lois, Jim and Kim, and I, stayed at the Garden RV park. It was nice, fairly reasonable in cost, and a great place to base our operations from. First stop was the Skagway Brewing co, where we had some local beers and dinner. Excellent food, the beer was OK, but nothing to write home about, really. They do brew a unique spruce tip beer, it was, well, interesting.

  

The next day dawned cold and rainy, so I stayed home and did some laundry, cleaned house, that kind of thing. We went as a group that evening to the Liarsville salmon bake, a combined show and grub thing. it was fun, even though the weather was still sucking. We hopped on a buss driven by Buttermilk, who regaled us with stories from life in Skagway… He’s one of the 600 or so year-round residents, a retired nurse. Liarsville is on the site where many of the news reporters stayed when covering the great Klondike gold rush. Apparently, they didn’t care much for actually travelling the trail with the prospectors, so they stayed in camp and made up stories for publication. Hence the name, I guess.

  

Never miss a chance to get your pic taken with a pretty girl. There was an entertaining show, featuring poems by Robert Service, music and jokes. 

  

We all got a chance to “pan for gold” it was sort of silly, but it does give you an idea of how mind-numbingly boring it must have been to sit in a stream and swish rocks around in a pan for days on end. I did find some gold however… It was planted in the pan to give us something to find.

  

Doubt I’ll be able to retire soon…. here’s my “haul”.

This was followed by a fine grilled salmon dinner with many trimmings. We all headed back to town on the bus, and Jim, Kim and I had a cold one at the brewpub to finish off the day.