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Fourth Stop: Skagway, Alaska |
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This way to Skagway, everyone!
Today is our second, and longest, stop on our Alaskan cruise! As Jackie and I filed off the boat around 7:00 AM, we discovered that the rain and my nemesis, the wind, had followed us both north as well. But that sure as heck wasn’t going to stop us from enjoying the historic town of Skagway to the fullest! Our shore excursion wasn’t until noon, which gave us plenty of time to explore town with the aid of a national park service ranger!
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See, Skagway (or shԍagéi in Tlingit) was the main seaport during the Klondike Gold Rush! Gold seekers from around the world landed here after chugging north from Seattle. Here, they would gather their wits and whatever else they could sling on a dog sled and head up the perilous Chilkoot Trail. If they had less than one ton of supplies, the Canadian mounties would turn them back, because they didn’t want a bunch of dead miners on Canadian soil!
After conquering the White Pass and reaching the Yukon River, gold rushers would then need to dig out their own kayak and ferry all of their goods hundreds of miles down the river to Dawson City! Of the thousands who headed north, only 30,000 reached Dawson City, and even fewer actually found gold.
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The biggest profiteers were the ones who stayed in Skagway to mine the miners! There were clothes to sell, food to purvey, and lots of vices to indulge! For instance, the Red Onion Saloon opened its bloomers in 1897, bringing in all those lucky miners with gold dust to spend and loneliness in their hearts! Today, the saloon is a restaurant and bar serving such delicacies as the Shady Lady Pizza!
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A few doors down is one of Alaska’s most photographed buildings, the Arctic Brotherhood Hall! Built in 1899 by gold rushers who more or less wanted a fraternity setup, its facade is made up of over 8,800 sticks of locally collected driftwood! From Skagway, the Arctic Brotherhood would go on to open more than thirty camps and have 10,000 members! It’s still an active organization today!
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Our tour concluded at the historic Moore Homestead. This was where Captain William Moore, in 1887, decided the number of prospectors in the area would inevitably result in a big gold discovery. So he and his son, Ben, started developing the area of Skagway, calling it Mooresville! They built a wharf and worked on the White Pass Trail. Sure enough, nine years later, the Moores’ homestead became a massive hub for gold rushers, and the timber from their sawmill made them very rich!
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Ben Moore built this nice home, where he lived with his Tlingit wife, Klinget-sai-yet Shotridge, and their three kids. Unfortunately, while this marriage strengthened ties with the local Tlingit, it didn’t sit well with Captain Moore, who sued his son for control of the land. Mrs. Moore’s Tlingit family didn’t like her new customs either. Eventually, the Moores fled Skagway to Washington, but their marriage dissolved in 1909. Their house was moved from the center of town to its current location, where it is still open for tours!
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At the end of the tour, and after treating ourselves to sugary hunks of fry bread called dough boys, we met up with Josh from Packer Expeditions for a Sawtooth Mountain Nature Hike! After waiting for one of the other hikers to change out of her white designer pumps, we hopped aboard the famous White Pass & Yukon Route Railway for a journey into the mountains!
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Though this historic railway goes all the way across the Canadian border to Whitehorse, our journey was only about 20 minutes long. We hopped out at the Denver Valley stop to begin our trek. We hopped out into a hearty drizzle that would not let up for the next three hours!
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It’s easy to forget sometimes that the southern part of Alaska is a temperate rainforest, which means it is incredibly lush and green! We trekked slowly through the fresh rain, learning that you can pick up and eat watermelon berries, but definitely don’t want to mistake them for baneberries, which are super toxic!
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Alaska’s also a super place to look for mushrooms, and amidst these trees were amazing, bright orange bracket fungi called chicken of the woods! We weren’t likely to find much gold metal in these woods, but these chickens were as close as we were going to get! Apparently, these are also edible, and when you cook them, they’re rumored to taste like chicken!
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We trekked about two miles through the rainforest, also learning about the difference between the bacon bark of the western hemlock and the potato chip bark of the Sitka spruce! We also learned that the spiny Devil’s Club, or Wiper’s Nightmare, has been used for centuries against arthritis, tuberculosis, and to ward off evil spirits!
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At last, we arrived at a clearing in the trees. Above, us the jagged Sawtooth Mountains appeared and vanished among the rapidly moving clouds and constant downpour! Below them, the roaring river slammed down the canyon with such force that we could hear huge boulders clacking together all along the bank!
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Despite the overwhelming wetness, I could have kept trekking the rest of the way to the glacier in this valley, but alas, our journey had started late and we had to get back to the train stop or risk a soggy campout in the Alaskan rainforest!
Back to sea we go!
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Fourth Stop: Skagway, Alaska |
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