Monday 20th May - Day four - Skagway, BC, Yukon

Woke at 4 and by 430 was writing out postcards like crazy on Deck 10. 45 postcards ready to go by 6 am. Dorothy came and we chatted and had breakfast at the buffet. We were all going on the train today at 10 so were excited about that. I wanted to get to a post office so headed out around 8 into town. Caught the mini shuttle to the end of the ship where I caught the town shuttle into town for 5 dollars you get an all day pass which consists of a stamp on your hand. They put it higher on my arm so that it would not get washed off over the course of the day.

The post office did not open till 830 so I went to a restaurant and used the facilities, I then went to purchase something as one should and the young girl, when I said it was the law that you had to buy something when you use the facilities with out purchasing something in the restaurant, said” it is not the law in Washington” I said Washington? I thought we were in Alaska?  She was very young.  It was a beautiful morning in Skagway and they had flowers blooming. I over heard one resident say that spring was a month late.

The post office opened and they did not have any stamps? but there was a shop down the road that did have some they thought. that store did not open till 9 so I went into some of the other shops that had free items and bought a northern lights pendant for too much although it is very pretty.  Popped into another shop and picked up the kids glow in the dark t-shirts.

The shop with the stamps opened and I bought them out along with a few more post cards. The girl behind the counter helped me put the stamps on 42 of the postcards after which I hurried up the street and mailed them and caught the town shuttle back to the dock for 930 where D,D&S were waiting for me. It seemed that we were taking a bus tour to start and then the train back into Alaska.

Davey on bus 108 was our guide and he was very good. We went to the gold panning place. Bigfoot was our A to B guy and two ton Tom showed us how to pan with a flourish. He was very, very slim and tall. But also very funny. I never realized how many bad puns and jokes there were about gold panning. 

We all found gold and most of us bought the little necklace to hold our gold. They gave us lunch, which was pretty good and we left our names on the wall along with the hundreds of other names that had been left over the years. went outside and took some photos by the river. 

Back on the bus and we were off to the border with a few picture stops along the way. It was a beautiful clear day, something that I guess happens very rarely in Skagway so we got views that most tourists don’t’ get.  at one point I traded seats with Dorothy on the other side of the bus as the heights and drop offs were really bothering me.

The Saw Tooth Mountains were clear and gorgeous at one of our photo stops and we appreciated seeing them very much. As we went higher there was more and more snow and with the sunshine I actually thought at one point I was going to go snow blind so was looking through my fingers like the Inuit do to cut the glare. (it works pretty good too).

We went through 4 levels of environments, Tundra, alpine, temperate rainforest and sea level. Wonderful. Dave kept up a running  chatter about this and that. Wiki pedia says' The White Pass Trail, was one of the two main passes used by prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush.  The White Pass was an easier route to Lake Bennett than the Chilkoot Trail a few kilometers to the west, but it harbored a criminal element that preyed on the cheechakos (newcomers to the Klondike). These con artists were believed to be members of the infamous Soapy Smith gang from Skagway, Alaska. In 1898 Smith was killed at the famed Shootout on the Juneau Wharf and his gang were run out of Skagway and the White Pass.

 So many horses died during the Gold rush that the trail became known as the "Dead Horse Trail". The trail ended at Lake Bennett, where the prospectors built or purchased rafts or boats to float down the Yukon River to the Klondike Gold Fields near Dawson City. 

The White Pass and Yukon route narrow gauge railroad was built 1898-1900 through White Pass. The southern end of the Klondike Highway also uses the White Pass and parallels the railway.

Both the Chilkoot Trail and White Pass had starvation, as well as insanity, and of course, death. Many of the starving people on the White Pass trail found the bodies of horses, and were so hungry, they ate them. Many of the people went insane on the White Pass, probably due to the rotting of the bodies in the snow, or because of the lack of vegtables, making it possible they had  scurvy.'

We went over the US border into BC and then into the Yukon and the suspension bridge, very pretty  wiki pedia says ' The Yukon Suspension Bridge is a pedestrian cable  suspension bridge located on mile 46.5 on the South  Klondike highway in Northern BC. It is 200 ft (60.96 metres) long and stretches 57 ft (17.36 metres) over the Tutshi River Canyon. There is an admission charge and it is visited by over 25 000 people every summer between the months of May and September.

The Yukon Suspension Bridge was completed in 2006 by Surespan Construction Group. The bridge's initial estimated cost for construction was one million Canadian dollars but due to the remote location and limitations on building supplies upon completion costs grew to three million Canadian dollars. In 2011 the bridge was privately acquired and now is locally owned and operated.

Due to the Yukon Suspension Bridge's isolated location there were challenges in the construction. The bridge was erected using galvanized steel cables, and required a helicopter to install the far side towers before it could be suspended over the river. This costly method was the only way to get the cables across because the other side of the canyon was completely inaccessible. 

Design of the interpretive areas and main building are done entirely in wood, since concrete is not available in these remote conditions where temperatures during winter reach -38° Celsius (-36.4° Fahrenheit).' It was not that cold when we were there thank goodness.

There were several fun picture taking spots including a stuffed polar bear? I believe that it was a younger bear  but still very capable of  killing me if it were alive. I took pictures, bought some t-shirts and postcards, had a washroom break and then back to the bus. there were five buses in the parking lot along the highway and the view towards the yukon and whitehorse was spectacular. 
Then our little excursion was over and we were back n the bus and back  to Fraser BC where we caught the train. 

Wikipedia says 'The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) is a Canadian and U.S. Class II 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway Alaska with  Whitehorse the capital of the yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.

The railroad began construction in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush as a means of reaching the goldfields. With its completion in 1900, it became the primary route to the interior of the Yukon, supplanting the Chilkoot Trail and other routes. The route continued operation until 1982, and in 1988 was partially revived as a heritage railway.

Today, the railroad is a subsidiary of Clublink and operated by the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company (in Alaska), the British Columbia Yukon Railway Company (in BC) and the British Yukon Railway Company, originally known as the British Yukon Mining, Trading and Transportation Company (in Yukon), which use the trade name White Pass and Yukon Route.

The line was born of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The most popular route taken by prospectors to the gold fields in Dawson City was a treacherous route from the port in Skagway, Alaska across the mountains to the Canadian border at the summit of the Chilcoot Pass or the White Pass. There, the prospectors were not allowed across by Canadian authorities unless they had one ton of supplies. This usually required several trips across the passes. There was a need for better transportation than pack horses used over the White Pass or human portage over the Chilkoot Pass. This need generated numerous railroad schemes. In 1897, the Canadian government received 32 proposals for Yukon railroads, and most were never realized.

In 1897, three separate companies were organized to build a rail link from Skagway to Fort Selkirk,Yukon, 325 miles (523 km) away. Largely financed by British investors, a railroad was soon under construction. A 3 ft (914 mm) gauge was chosen by the railway contract builder  Michael James Heney. The narrow roadbed required by narrow gauge greatly reduced costs when the roadbed was blasted in solid rock. Even so, 450 tons of explosives were used to reach White Pass summit. The narrow gauge also permitted tighter radii to be used on curves, making the task easier by allowing the railroad to follow the landscape more, rather than having to be blasted through it.

Construction started in May 1898, but they encountered roadblocks in dealing with the local city government and the town's crime boss, Soapy Smith. The President, Samuel H. Graves (1852–1911), was elected as chairman of the vigilante organization that was trying to expel Soapy and his gang of confidence men and rogues. On the evening of July 8, 1898, Soapy Smith was killed in the  Shootout on Juneau Wharf with guards at one of the vigilante's meetings. Samuel Graves witnessed the shooting. The railroad helped block off the escape routes of the gang, aiding in their capture, and the remaining roadblocks in Skagway subsided.

On July 21, 1898, an excursion train hauled passengers for 4 miles (6.4 km) out of Skagway, the first train to operate in Alaska. On July 30, 1898, the charter rights and concessions of the three companies were acquired by the White Pass & Yukon Railway Company Limited, a new company organized in London. Construction reached the 2,885-foot (879.3 m) summit of White Pass, 20 miles (32 km) away from Skagway, by mid-February 1899. The railway reached Bennett BC, on July 6, 1899. 

Very cool old narrow gauge track that follows the trail the gold rushers used way back when..Bye to Davey with a small tip and we were going back down to Skagway. Breathtaking drops, bridges, tunnels and scenery!  the sheer dropoffs on the train did not bother me like when I was on the bus, wierd eh?  I bought the souvenir set of hat, DVD and book that you can only get onboard the train.

Back in town we shopped and got our free things  Shirley found her chocolate earrings and I found some Alaska black diamond earrings,  back to the ship on the shuttle and drop off our stuff. Ran in to the head housekeeper and asked about laundry and she helped us out after a bit of discussion. we would give them our clothes at 10 that night and they would give us back our clothes by 8 am the next day. I have enough clothes that I will not be trapped in the room tomorrow morning while waiting for the return of our clothes.

Deck 10 for dinner instead of the main dining room that was nice and quiet and fairly quick too as it is buffet so you can just pick up what you want and most people are at the sit down restaurants. I wanted sush but they actually did not have that much for non fish eating vegetarians.

  I wanted to go to the very top of the ship so we bundled up and went up. It was great.  I have been very careful taking pictures as I don’t have my charger for my battery (it is in My luggage) and I would like to be able to take some photos of the glacier. 

We came back in as Shirley was getting cold and found a nice spot in the back of deck 10 to watch the boat pull out of port. Watched a tug maneuver a barge semi full of sea containers, (probably full of jewelry and stamps), in to the dock and then we pulled out, backed out actually. Very, very slowly.  like backing out an extremely large car . Beautiful.

 I went back to the room at that point and had a shower. I still had the oil in my hair from the head massage and I needed it. Sorted things out. Found all my receipts  (have to figure out if I need to call Visa to increase my card limit so that I can get off the ship) and wrote post cards. Went to bed but did not fall asleep right away as I had had a cup of tea and was a little wired, but that did not last long.