Skagway Alaska

The next, and last, stop on our ferry journey up the inside passage is Skagway. Skagway has an interesting history from the gold rush days of Alaska. Before gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896, Skagway had just a few residents. That ballooned to over 30,000 within a year with over 1,000 miners passing through each week on their way to the gold fields, turning Skagway into the largest city in Alaska. After a couple years, the railroad was finished and the population plummeted again until the cruise ships discovered the town. Now there are about 1,000 full time residents and anywhere from 5,00-15,000 cruise ship visitors on any given day. The “town” is mostly a boardwalk lined with t-shirt shops and jewelry stores, not a very interesting place.

 

 

 

The list of equipment required for each miner to carry before being allowed through the pass into the Yukon was impressive and added up to “a ton of goods.” The mortality rate was so high that the Canadian Mounties only let people across the border if they had everything on the list. After driving up the 11 mile, 11% grade leading out of town and up into the Yukon, it’s easy to appreciate just how hardy those early miners were and how strong the lure of gold must have been.

We arrived in town at about 4:30 in the afternoon, settled into a campsite right next to the train station for the White Pass & Yukon Railroad and walked around town for a couple of hours. Then we settled in for the evening and spent some time prepping for the drive though Yukon and on to Tok, Alaska.

But if not…