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The ship docked in Skagway early in the morning. Skagway was once known as the gateway to the gold fields. Over a hundred years ago, the White Pass route through the Coast Mountains and the shorter but steeper Chilkoot Trail were used by countless gold seekers. Many died in the harsh elements trying to climb the Chilkoot Trail. The Canadian authorities would not let anyone into the Yukon without a year's worth of supplies, so folks would have to make up to 40 fully loaded trips up this steep trail to haul of their supplies.
The gold rush was a boon to Skagway - by 1898 it was Alaska's largest town with a population of about 20,000. But when the gold yield dwindled in 1900, so did the population of Skagway. Today, it has less than 1,000 residents, but it retains the flavor of the gold rush era, especially on Broadway with its false-front buildings.
We went on a Nature and Wildlife Expedition. We took a boat to the nearby town of Haines and drove into the Chilkoot Valley, the "Valley of the Eagles". We stopped at various points along a river and looked for wildlife through binoculars and spotting scopes.
We saw mountain goats, harlequin ducks
and surf scoters.
Then we started seeing flying and nesting bald eagles everywhere we looked. The salmon would soon start spawning up the river and the eagles had a front row seat. The really cool thing about having a digital camera is that I was able to put the lens of the camera up to the eyepiece of a spotting scope, and sight in on the image. I took this shot of a nesting eagle.
After seeing more eagles than we've ever seen in our lives, we took a short walk through part of the world's largest temperate rain forest. The mosquitos were so thick that we had to wear mosquito netting, and even so a bunch of them got us through the netting. We eventually took a boat back to Skagway and walked into town.
We walked down the main road and saw the famous Red Onion Saloon, Skagway's first bordello. Built in 1898, it is now a gold-rush themed saloon.
Camp Skagway is supposedly the most photographed building in Alaska. This driftwood-decorated frame building was the home of a fraternal group founded by gold seekers on their way to the Klondike. The building was erected in 1899, and the facade was put up the next year.
Here's a display of a gold-rush era bar.
A narrow-gauge train still runs here, the White Pass & Yukon Route. The iron trail was carved through some of the most rugged terrain in 1898. It climbs nearly 3,000 feet over 20 miles of steep grades and sharp turns.
