Skagway is a very cool town! Everyone was very friendly and the locals really took care of us. Without their kind help, M and I would have missed our ship… but more on that later. Skagway would be our northernmost stop and we had a family excursion planned. A scenic train ride up the Yukon railway into Canada and back. No walking required!
My first impression of Skagway was that it was too small for a cruise ship. Such a narrow canal to get through and then after we docked, the ship was definitely the tallest man-made thing around!
Skagway was part of the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1800s and is home to Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Of course we had to visit the park’s visitor center to learn more and get my park stamp! Turns out, a few of my old friends and co-workers had previously worked there and one of them turned up in photos in the exhibit area! Always fun to run into friends, even if they’re 2 dimensional.
A walk around town revealed that many of the buildings kept their 1800s charm and, though modernly functional, were part of the historic aspect of the national park site.
After walking around town for a bit, and of course stopping into an independent bookstore for some local purchases, we met up with my family and boarded the train.
The trip would take us a little over 2,000 feet up the Coast Mountains, through more of the Tongass National Forest, to the Canadian border, then turn around and head back down.
Here’s a video of the very top… Yukon Railway at American-Canadian Border
Once we got back down, M and I really wanted to visit the old historic cemetery that we’d just ridden by. The only problem was that it was a few miles outside of town and we only had 2 hours before the ship sailed away!
Skagway has a small transit system and they were super-friendly. We hopped on a bus, told the lady where we wanted to go, and were informed that the bus wouldn’t go out that far but if we were willing to walk a mile each way, she’d drop us off at a corner! She told us to be sure and be back on that corner, or at least walking down that street in an HOUR, or we’d miss the last bus of the day. She told us to cut through a trail that walked near the river and alongside the railyard and after that ended, we’d walk the old road for a little ways until we saw the graveyard. So we hauled ass. I ended up taking a lot of photos so I could read the gravestones later. M was a bit more leisurely in his reading than I was. (if you know me, you know I’m always early and that time tables really tend to get me anxious). The result was that I walked faster than M the whole time, intending on making the bus and forcing them to wait for him to get there.
The cemetery was very interesting. Most of the graves date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are only records of 60 of the 130 inhabitants and as more research and archeology digs are done, they’re finding even more graves! There was a short walk to a waterfall that we really wanted to do, but just didn’t have the time.
Luckily for us, we managed to make it back to the bus stop on time, after a LOT of power walking. The driver told us that she’d been informed to keep an eye out for us and that the whole town would have pitched in if we’d been late. She also worked at a local bar and said that anytime the ship blew its horn, that meant that someone was late. Because its a small town, and every one knows each other, they all would just start looking around for someone they didn’t recognize and that person must be a cruiser. Someone would give them a ride back to the dock! So great to know that the locals would have our backs!
We had some time towards the end of the day to chill on our balcony and I got to add a new bird to my life list! – Arctic tern!!!
High Rises to Hiking Boots 