Skagway

Wow, wow and double wow!!!!! How much better can this scenery get!! Tried unsuccessfully to attach a couple of photos that give you some idea – but you really have to experience this place for yourself. Skagway has a population of 910 people, but when the cruise ships are in (five today!) the population increases to several thousand. In fact they get about 300,000 visitors per year. We were surprised to learn that Skagway gets an average of three earthquakes per day! But they are all in the 1.1 to 1.8 range so you can’t feel them. Skagway is a village of 1’s – 1 gas station, 1 police officer, 1 post office, 1 school (P-12 with a total of 81 students), 1 grocery store (supplies come in on Tuesdays, so no milk etc after Saturday) and 1 hardware store.
We started the tour with a bus trip up the South Klondike Highway to Fraser, British Columbia. Yes, we crossed into Canada. Then we boarded the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway train back to Skagway. Words cannot describe the beautiful rugged snow-capped mountains, deep valleys and forests, as well as the fast flowing Skagway River. We saw an old trestle bridge formerly used by the trains and looking rickety as hell.
On returning to Skagway we were driven to Liarsville for lunch. Liarsville is a reconstruction of the original mining camp on the same site, and was so named as it was the base for many journalists who refused to make the six month winter trek across the mountains to the Yukon in the 1897 gold rush but preferred to write stories based on the wild stories and rumours brought back by those who tried to make the crossing and failed. We had lunch there – a beautiful salmon bake with the best sweet and sour type sauce you can imagine.
Our last stop was the Red Onion Saloon. This is the original saloon that was Skagway’s most famous brothel. The ‘madam’ who was our tour guide was very informative and witty. She used lots of innuendo like: “Please don’t fall as you get off the bus. I don’t want anyone going down on me just yet”.
After dinner we enjoyed a comedy show in the Stardust Theatre by The Second City comedy group. Second City is Chicago based and has produced hundreds of great comedians since 1959, e.g. Tina Fey, John Belushi, Joan Rivers, John Candy and so many more. All up we had a fantastic day, and proved that paradise doesn’t have to have palm trees.