Skagway and the Yukon

Our last port of call in Alaska was in Skagway, a very small town at the mouth of the Skagway River.  When gold was first discovered in 1896 the first prospectors laid claim to the original homesteader's land in the area and Skagway was born.  During the gold rush the town was nicknamed by visitors as "hell on earth" due to the chaos brought on by the gold rush and the criminal element drawn to the area.  It became a railroad town in the early 1900's and stayed such until the railroad closed in 1982.  It reopened in 1988 as a summer operation and today it's largest industry is tourism.

I had booked a tour on the White Pass Railway for a rail/bus tour into the Yukon.  The train traveled 28 miles to the depot at Fraser, British Columbia where we were transferred to a van for the remainder of the tour.  It was a fun trip on the train and we saw so much beautiful scenery.  A lot of pictures this day are blurry, but I did find a few that show the gorgeous country.

 We were on the last car on the train and were able to stand outside on the platform to take our pictures without any obstructions behind us.

 This was our last view of the port as we headed up the mountain.

Ken and the Conductor.  If you were casting a movie isn't that the face you would want for a train conductor?  Come to think of it that's probably exactly what they did when hiring for for this tourist attraction.  He was very nice and knowledgeable about the area.

 This trestle doesn't look very safe from this angle.

 One of the four bears we saw this day.  They were all close to the highway and were so into eating the dandelions that they payed little attention to us.

 Sue and Duane at the entrance to the Yukon.

This is sand, not snow!

 The Yukon is home to the smallest desert in the world.  This desert is the remains of the sandy bottom of a glacial lake left after the last ice age.  The dry climate and the strong wind conditions is what created the sand dunes and what allows little vegetation to grow.




 The beautiful green water of Emerald Lake.  The color of Emerald Lake is created by sunlight reflecting off a white layer of “marl” on the lake bed. Marl is a white calcium carbonate (CaCO3) clay that forms in the water and then settles, often unevenly, onto the lake bottom. It forms when enough carbonate (CO3), from dissolving limestone), reacts with calcium (Ca) in the water. (copied from and internet source, because I couldn't remember what they told us about why the water was so green).

The pictures don't do the colors justice.  There were several shades of green and blue, it was stunning.

We ate lunch at a camp near Whitehorse, Yukon where dogs are trained for the Yukon Quest, a grueling 1000 mile sled dog race from Whitehorse to Fairbanks.

I picked up a short book written by Michelle Phillips who has completed the Yukon Quest 3 times.  Her husband is also a musher and has done the race 5 times.  A single musher and 14 dogs travel the rugged mountain summits with 10 checkpoints along the way.  If a dog becomes injured they are not allowed to replace it.  Vets and dog handlers are stationed at each checkpoint to ensure that the dogs can continue the race.  Mushers carry mandatory equipment and food on their sleds and are not allowed to accept any help, other than an occasional meal except at the checkpoint at the half-way point along the race route.  The book was a fascinating account of the last race she ran.  It takes an adventurous soul to complete a grueling event like this. 

 One of the many waterfalls we saw on our trip.

The train/bus tour lasted the entire time we were in Skagway so we didn't have time to do any exploring in the town.  We passed these rocks on our walk back to the ship.  Each time a cruise ship makes its maiden voyage to Alaska the ship's name and the name of the captain are painted on these rocks.  I did some research on this wall when we returned home and found that this tradition began in the gold rush days.  Skagway was "the end of the line" for the ships carring men and supplies to Alaska. With virtually no means of communications, and no port agent or authorities to keep track of the ships coming in and out of Skagway, the logo on the wall was a way to tell other captains that you had made it safely to that point and had headed back. Sometimes a new logo would be painted, other times just the date of arrival was changed. If a captain had left San Francisco, for instance, a week ahead of a friend and fellow captain, and that captain did not find the logo upon his arrival in Skagway, he would inform any other captains in port to watch carefully for any signs of a shipwreck or survivors on the return trip.

This was our last day in Alaska, the next two days were spent at sea making our way back to Seattle with a short stop in one of my favorite cities, Victoria, British Columbia.