September 13, 2004

September 13, 2004

Last night we set sail again and we awaken to our ship cruising north down a long inlet docking in Skagway. Skagway was a major gateway for the Yukon gold rush. In 1898, 100,000 people flooded this town, in preparation for their 600-mile journey inland. The Canadians required everyone to bring a year’s food supply with them. It took dozens of brutal trips to carry this ton of goods up the steep, snowy, and cold White Pass trail to the top of the mountain. There gold rushers had to build a raft to carry them down the treacherous Yukon River to Dawson City deep in the Yukon Territory.

After breakfast we disembark and walk into Skagway and find the Visitor Center. Most of Skagway is now part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. We sign up for a 45-minute walking tour. The park ranger gives us a very entertaining tour of the town and its very short but wild history.

In the afternoon, we board the White Pass and Yukon narrow gauge train for a ride up the original trail. The train does in a couple hours what it took the gold-seekers days to accomplish. It is a beautiful ride up a pine-forested mountain pass, along very steep cliffs, and ends just over the Canadian border. I would not have wanted to haul a ton of equipment up this arduous trail in winter. There was an alternative route to the Yukon from the nearby port town of Dyea up the Chilkoot Pass trail. It was ten miles shorter but even steeper than this one and prone to avalanches.