An Alaska Port City Vignette – Skagway
If you’re happily hysterical about places historical, Skagway, Alaska is a town you’ve just gotta see.
No fake frontier town, this. It’s the genuine article – so genuine the city’s historical district is part of the U.S. National Park Service Gold Rush National Historical Park. The park, in turn, is comprised of three units: in Skagway, in Seattle and the Chilkoot Trail between nearby Dyea and Lake Bennett in the Canadian Yukon. (The U.S. National Park Service and Parcs Canada jointly administer the authentic goldrush trail). Don’t have time for a three-day trek over the international pass? There are numerous walks and hikes in and close to town that can be savored for an hour or a day. The Dewey Lake Trail System is a particular delight.
For
good reason
Skagway rates as one of Alaska’s most popular port cities among
cruisers sailing the Inside Passage. One of the most favored activities
during a Skagway visit is the round-trip, mountain-hugging excursion
aboard the White Pass and Yukon Route narrow-gauge railway from Skagway
to White Pass summit and beyond.Daily in summertime the vintage engines and passenger cars of the White Pass & Yukon Route leave sealevel Skagway for climbing rail excursions to a variety of mountaintop destinations. The ascending path of the WP&YR was blasted from the sides of granite mountains, offering present-day cruise and other visitors some of the most stunning mountain vista views in the world. (Photo by Brian Adams, courtesy of Alaska Travel Industry Association.)
In
the city of Skagway itself,
historical fun and fascination abounds – from the Skagway Museum which
positively overflows with goldrush mementoes to con-man and outlaw
“Soapy” Smith’s Bar. Notable too: the Red Onion Saloon (with a former
brothel upstairs). The bar (not the brothel) is a working establishment
much favored by locals year-round as well as by summer visitors.
Actually the brothel is an active business, sort of. The saloon offers
tours of the site during the summer.Many of the structures on historic Broadway in Skagway were constructed during the days of the 1898 Gold Rush to the Canadian Klondike. Among favorite past and present watering holes is the historic Red Onion Saloon. Upstairs over the street level bar the building's former brothel has been restored – as a museum, not as the business for which it served in Skagway's wild and wooly heyday. (Mike Miller photo.)
The Days of ’98 Show (“with Soapy Smith”) in the Eagles Hall is something of an antiquity itself. It has delighted visitors for more than eight decades! Hungry for Alaska-caught salmon? Take in the Liarsville Gold Rush Camp & Salmon Bake outside of town for good grub, gold panning (“color” guaranteed), a delightful “mellerdrammer” and much more. If you’re thirsty for locally brewed beers and ales visit the Skagway Brewing Company and sip some Klondike Gold, Prospector Pale, Chilkoot Trail IPA, Boom Town Brown, or more than a dozen other locally-brewed choices.
You’ll find more info about Skagway at: www.skagway.com.