Skagway
We went up toward White Pass the easy way this morning, but a hundred and eight years ago gold seekers (Argonauts) came from Seattle and San Francisco to Skagway, the “Gateway to the Klondike,” hoping to strike it rich. Here’s how it shook out:
40,000 came
4,000 made it up to the gold fields
400 actually found gold
40 struck it rich
What’s more, they each brought with them 1,000 pounds of goods, from sewing needles to extra shoes, which were on a list of supplies required by Canadian law.
During our morning jaunt on the White Horse Yukon Railroad, we steamed through tunnels and passed over trestle bridges spanning huge gulches filled with raging torrents of glacial melt water. Although the lake at the top of the pass was frozen, we stepped out at the train depot back in Skagway into a balmy seventy-degree day, prepared to stretch our legs in town.
In the afternoon, adventurous hikers climbed up to Lower Dewey Lake, joining locals, visitors, and their dogs on a cooling forest walk. Others took the low road along the Skagway River and out toward Yakutania Point on Taiya Inlet. Orange-crowned warblers, slate colored juncos, and Steller’s jays brought the landscape to life with their calls. The fresh blooms of the wild and poisonous baneberry, mountain ash, elderberry, carpets of dwarf dogwood, and swaths of brilliant red columbine were seen along the trails.
We departed from Skagway and spent the early evening passing from Taiya Inlet into Lynn Canal, making our way through glassy waters under bright blue skies. Marbled murrelets and pacific loons paddled and dove through the blue-green water, and when we stopped at Nelson Falls the air was fresh with the scent of spruce-infused spray. All in all, the warm, calm day was a wonderful gift in springtime Alaska.
We went up toward White Pass the easy way this morning, but a hundred and eight years ago gold seekers (Argonauts) came from Seattle and San Francisco to Skagway, the “Gateway to the Klondike,” hoping to strike it rich. Here’s how it shook out:
40,000 came
4,000 made it up to the gold fields
400 actually found gold
40 struck it rich
What’s more, they each brought with them 1,000 pounds of goods, from sewing needles to extra shoes, which were on a list of supplies required by Canadian law.
During our morning jaunt on the White Horse Yukon Railroad, we steamed through tunnels and passed over trestle bridges spanning huge gulches filled with raging torrents of glacial melt water. Although the lake at the top of the pass was frozen, we stepped out at the train depot back in Skagway into a balmy seventy-degree day, prepared to stretch our legs in town.
In the afternoon, adventurous hikers climbed up to Lower Dewey Lake, joining locals, visitors, and their dogs on a cooling forest walk. Others took the low road along the Skagway River and out toward Yakutania Point on Taiya Inlet. Orange-crowned warblers, slate colored juncos, and Steller’s jays brought the landscape to life with their calls. The fresh blooms of the wild and poisonous baneberry, mountain ash, elderberry, carpets of dwarf dogwood, and swaths of brilliant red columbine were seen along the trails.
We departed from Skagway and spent the early evening passing from Taiya Inlet into Lynn Canal, making our way through glassy waters under bright blue skies. Marbled murrelets and pacific loons paddled and dove through the blue-green water, and when we stopped at Nelson Falls the air was fresh with the scent of spruce-infused spray. All in all, the warm, calm day was a wonderful gift in springtime Alaska.
