Day 7: Train trip to Skagway

The bus groaned and complained all the way to Fraser. The road wasn't overly bumpy, 70 km maximum speed limit but still the creaking continued. We stopped for a few photo opportunities and at Carcross for a drink and loo stop. Here we saw more quaint engines and bicycle parks and listened to Lorde singing Royal for the second time since arriving in Whitehorse.

The passing landscape was alpine, trees stunted through poor nutrition (would get my two hands around 95% of the trees). As we got higher the trees grew more like bushes spreading their roots and branches wider covering the rocky landscape.

 

At Fraser we boarded the historical train. Bus loads of people were loaded onto separate carriages so we could all be processed at the border efficiently. Magnificent scenery, boulders and scree stood high and proud. Little lakes dotted the area, with splashes of colourful mosses and lichens. This is where the gold miners came to search for gold along the Klondike. It is called the tormented valley. A small trail, for miles and miles, not wide enough for horses to carry their loads. The path is called the Horses Gulch - a tribute to the poor tormented animals that fell to their death.  Jack London famous for White Fang (can't believe this was on the reading list at primary school) wrote....

" Gold Fever! Deadly Cold! ...In 1897, the California native went to the frozen North looking for gold. What he found instead was the great American novel.

I do not have the writing skills to describe the landscape so here is Jack London himself.

"Through the window of a small plane, I look out over the vastness of the Yukon Territory—an area bigger than California with only 33,000 residents. It’s an austere landscape of glaciated mountain ranges, frozen lakes, ice fields and spruce forests. Then the mountains are behind us, and there are low hills and tundra to the horizons, and a big frozen river starting to melt. It was this stark wilderness that 100,000 prospectors tried to cross on foot, and in homemade boats, during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s. The “stampeders,” as they were known, were desperate to reach the gold fields around Dawson City, but the journey took more than two months, and was so punishing and dangerous that only 30,000 made it through. In the first wave was a tough, stocky 21-year-old from San Francisco named Jack London".

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gold-fever-deadly-cold-and-amazing-true-adventures-jack-london-wild-180973316/ 

Past the broken wooden viaduct and down the slope to Skagway.  The weather was cloudy for most of the trip. It didn't make for great photos but added to the atmosphere and helped us develop some empathy for the gold miners who endured so much for so little.

 

 

At Skagway we were met by US customs. Always an experience not to look forward to. The officials past through the train checking everyone's IDs and asking when we were last in the US.  Our answer was a few years ago, and so with a group of Japanese our passports were taken and we were told to meet over at the office.  Then with a slight smile, the customs officer took our fingerprints and photos (all this after having an ESTA and paying an addition $6 to complete an online I94) and returned our passports.  

Skagway is a quaint little Alaskan town, rich in history. It was busy. 3 cruise ships were berthed in the small harbour.  It had that feeling of Picton, a sleepy little town overrun by tourists when the boats were in). It was buzzing in the centre with people enjoying the unique buildings, taking photos, eating lunch or looking through the souvenir shops of which there were heaps. We ate our crackers and organic delights (the bakery in Whitehorse will miss us when we leave) and were grateful we had listened to the local who told us that it could take a while to get food. Queuers stood patiently outside the popular cafes while we had the time to wander the streets.

Two hours later we were on the bus ready to drive back to Whitehorse.  But the bus didn't move as the driver was still helping people fill out the Canadian border forms thirty minutes later (I must admit the form was not made for people who spend only a couple of hours in the US). The driver had one of those "I do not get ruffled and take my time" demeanors, which I would love to have, but it did mean a late start and a long trip back.