Skagway: From Ship to Summit

Skagway, Alaska

May 16, 2025

Fun Fact about our blog - Yesterday we posted our 100th Blog!!! Thank you for following along and supporting us on this adventure!

Fun Facts about Skagway:

• Skagway’s most famous resident was the outlaw Soapy Smith. One of his more infamous exploits was to offer to send telegraphs for the miners for $5 each. No one noticed that there weren't any telegraph lines in Skagway!

• Skagway olds the Guinness World Record for the most people in an egg toss, set on July 4th 2008, with 1,162 participants.

• The haunted Golden North Hotel is the oldest hotel in Alaska

• The municipality's population is just over 1,100. However Skagway gets over 1,000,000 visitors during the summer cruise ship season.

• Legend says the name, Skagway, came from the name of a mythical woman who turned herself to stone at Skagway Bay.

Today we are docked in Skagway. Our excursion doesn't start until the afternoon, so we had a relaxing morning. (Yay!) This is an unusual docking situation, since the ship is tied up at a dock, but we still have to take a tender into town, a 5 minute trip. The reason is that there was a massive rock slide that has blocked the road to this particular dock.

Skagway is set in a beautiful glacial valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The town is managed by the National Park Service who are maintaining it to reflect how it looked during the gold rush, and promoting its rich history.

Unlike some of the other towns we have visited in Alaska, Skagway does have a road in, but most goods are still shipped in. For example, the one grocery store gets deliveries via ship once a week. The most popular items sell out quickly, and the shelves are mostly empty within two days leaving the residents to eat out a lot.

The Town of Skagway

In the afternoon we boarded a bus and headed up to White Pass, traveling a similar path as the Stampeders (miners rushing to get to the Klondike gold).

To follow their journey, today we traveled up the mountain on a highway that followed a similar path as the White Pass Railway. The trains travelled along a 110 mile long narrow gauge track, built in 1887, and designed to carry gold miners into and out of the Klondike Gold Fields. It rises 3,000 feet over 20 miles. The decision to use a narrow gauge track was based on the need to use less dynamite to create the path for the track to be laid, so it would cost less and could be completed more quickly. There are only 10 narrow gauge tracks still working worldwide.

Train cars in Skagway and Fraser:

Train traveling along the line to White Pass, and snow shoveller/remover

Newcomers to the Klondike Gold Rush had to choose between two trails to hike up to the gold fields. One, the Chilkoot, was shorter, but so steep the hikers could only bring the equipment or supplies that they could carry. The second was the White Pass trail which was longer, but not as steep, so horses, mules or porters could help carry food and equipment. This is the trail the new railroad followed. It was 44 miles to get to the gold fields. A large percentage of the hikers died during this trek. The new train did help, but by the time the tracks were completed the gold rush was winding down.

As we travelled up the mountain on the Klondike Highway, we were taking a similar route as the White Pass Trail and the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway. Along the way we passed a visible fault line between the North American and Pacific plates. In the picture below you can see the fault along the crack in the rocks in line with the waterfall.

As we travelled further up the mountain along this path, we crossed into Canada to visit the Tormented Valley, and viewed the impact of glaciers on the land. Glaciers carved and shaped the landscape leaving behind valleys and lakes in a semi-circular shape that funnels the winds into and around the valley at high speeds. One piece of evidence of this is the trees that only grow leaves on one side as they can't withstand the wind beating down on the other side.

Another interesting feature of the high mountain area were the glacial pools. Here is an example:

This was a fascinating trip. We learned about the history of the gold rush and the people who tried to make their fortune there, but may have lost their life instead. The guide shared interesting geological, botanical, and meteorological facts, along with local highlights and stories about living in this isolated environment.

Two take-aways from this day were that nature does not follow man-made boundaries, and that nature is beautiful as well as dangerous.

For the next two days, we will be cruising around Glacier Bay and Hubbard Glacier. We are expecting breathtaking views and spectacular sights. We hope to capture the experience in pictures and words which we will share with you! Take care all!