Skagway, AK

When we woke up this morning and pulled back the curtain, we were greeted by a wall of granite.  Literally.  Interestingly, it was covered with "graffiti" of the names of the ships that had docked here since 1928.  It's a tradition that the crews of the ships have autographed the wall to commemorate their first voyage to Skagway. 

The crew hooking up the gang plank

In the Fall of 1926, "Soapy Smith's Skull" was painted on a natural rock formation shaped like a skull. Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith was a famous con artist, gangster, and crime boss in the 19th century who had ties to Skagway (then spelled Skaguay), and was killed there in a shootout on the wharf in 1898. 

Along the base of this wall, running parallel to the pier, was a set of train tracks.  One of the excursions available at this stop was a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway, and conveniently, it stops right along the ship for boarding.  By the time we had eaten breakfast at 7am, the train was sitting on the tracks waiting for the first trip of the day. 

  

At the shopping seminar we had attended on our first day at sea, both Kelley and Mom had purchased "VIP books" that contained lots of coupons for both free and discounted items at all of our Alaskan ports.  Armed with their VIP books, we left the ship to head into town for an early start to shopping.  The port was a little less than a mile from town, but there was a shuttle service (SMART - Skagway Municipal and Regional Transit) available to take passengers into town.  The downtown area is really cute and still has the flavor of an old gold mining town.  Some of the buildings are more than 100 years old, while the newer buildings are just built to look that way.  The year-round population of Skagway is about 960.  The high school had held graduations ceremonies the week before we arrived for the 4 members of the class of 2014.  Over 200 people had attended the ceremony.  Why?  Free cake! 

As we were shopping in Skagway, we ran into Bob and Sue.  Remember them from yesterday?  You will be relieved to know that Bob got his hat back!   They were doing some shopping before they were headed out on the train trip.  We had signed up for "To the Summit" which was a 90 minute round trip bus ride from Skagway along the Klondike Highway into the Stikine Region of British Columbia, Canada.  Since our excursion left at 10:30 am, we headed back to the port area to find out bus. Our guide, Peggy, was great.  She was very entertaining and informative.  Interesting fact:  Due to high winds and very bad weather, the border patrols stations for both the US and Canada are located 8 miles from the actual border.  That means there is technically 16 miles of "no man's land" between the border stations.   We stopped a couple of times during the trip for photo opportunities. 

 

 

We caught up with the train.

You don't see this sign every day.

You don't see this sign every day either.

Yep, another bear

Peeking over the guard rail

We got back from our excursion in time for lunch, so we headed back to the ship.  After lunch, mom decided to stay on board while we finished her shopping, so the rest of us headed back downtown.  After collecting more freebies, we headed out on the SMART bus to the Jewell Gardens and Garden City Glassworks.  We didn't take the time to do the tours, but we did spend some time in their gift shop.  They had some amazing glass pieces, and the best part...they would ship the pieces.  I bought an awesome glass fish, and I can't wait for it to arrive.  We then headed back downtown to hit the fudge shop (we had to use our coupon!), and show Flat Nathan and Flat Jon some of the sites of Skagway.

Zach, the tourist, buying popcorn



When we got back to the ship, we noticed that some of the crew were painting the Carnival Miracle's logo on the wall.  It was pretty cool to witness something being painted that might still be there in 100 years.

Our balconies

We got back on the ship around 5:30 pm with a little time to relax before preparing for dinner.  After dinner, we played bingo again, but afterwards, we were all exhausted and headed back to the room.  These early mornings are taking their toll. 



Zach's Word of the Day - Eskimo

11,627 steps

5.23 miles