We woke up this morning to the ship being almost docked so I missed seeing the tugboats. We docked on the port side so even if I had been up early enough I wouldn't have seen them...well, there is one more chance in Victoria on Thursday.
Again we were blessed by the weather gods and didn't have the rain that had been predicted. It was not as warm as Juneau nor as sunny, but layers and my fleece vest felt good most of the day.
We ate in the Promenade cafe for breakfast and headed to town. There were little shuttles that took us from the bottom of the gangplank to where the city busses were available. My roomie is having some sciatica problems so we are trying to keep her as pain free as possible. Our primary shopping goal was going to The Rushin Tailor, the local quilt shop. It was a wonderful shop with loads of Alaska oriented fabrics. I had looked online so knew one thing I wanted to get and then added a bit more to it! I'm going to be really busy this winter!
Most of the buildings in Skagway were built in just a few years at the end of the late 1800's. When I find the exact info I'll put it up here. Like many of the places on the cruise line paths, they roll up their sidewalks during the winter. Skagway has about 800 full time residents and brings in 1,000-1,200 additional people from May-September for the 10,000-12,000 daily cruise ship visitors. Amazingly enough one of our shuttle bus drivers was a Skagway native.
We returned to the ship to drop off our packages since we had time before our train excursion at 12:30, and, grab a quick bite since we knew that we wouldn't have any lunch provided on the train. The train, the White Pass Yukon railway system, picked us up right at the end of the pier and we headed up the mountain. Even though it was cloudy, the scenery was breathtaking...not as much for me, since I am used to huge mountains,and deep gorges, but there were some people from Kentucky and Minnesota who were just blown away.
One of the highlights was seeing Carmody glacier and its runoff that dropped 6,000 feet, forming Bridal Falls, before entering the Skagway River.
The White Pass trail was one of 2 trails that led miners to the Yukon gold fields. This one was not the more famous Chilkoot trail that has the picture of the miners going up the steep incline in snow. Unlike the Chilkoot, this one is no longer hike-able, but there are still portions visible. Apparently this trail was just as crowded with miners, though. We were told that if a miner stepped out of line for some reason it could take him hours to be able to get back into line and on the trail.
The actual train runs more than 100 miles and is an all day trip, ending in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. We only went as far as the border, about 20 miles, with the engines switching ends and the passengers flipping seats and changing sides so everyone had a chance to be on the scenic side. We did just barely go into Canada but no one was able you get off.
Back home to the cruise ship for dinner (yes, eating way too much good food), working on this and hoping to get to bed early enough to get up to see Tracy Arm Fjord that we will be cruising through starting about 5:30 in the morning. Also have the 2nd quilting class tomorrow...
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