Skagway, Alaska
Friday, May 30

Located at the northern tip of Alaska's Inside Passage (90 miles NE of Juneau) - Size 455 sq. miles of land and 11 sq. miles of water - Population: 850

Arrival time into Skagway: 6:33am - Departure: 8:16pm
Temperature: approximately 52 degrees F (it felt a lot colder on the bike)

Click on small picture to view larger image.


In June 1908, Engine No. 69 was delivered to the WP&YR. At 134,369 pounds, it was one of the heaviest narrow-gauge, outside-frame (steam) locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works Co.



This sign on the far wall of the canyon was painted by the Buchanan Boys Tour Group, brought from Detroit by George Buchanan (a Detroit coal merchant) each year to visit Skagway, circa 1920-30.
Black Cross Rock - On Aug. 3, 1898, a blasting accident buried two railworkers under a 100-ton granite rock. The black cross marks their resting place.
Bridal Veil Falls cascade 6,000 ft from the glaciers on Mt. Cleveland and Mt. Clifford






Tunnel surrounded by the Coast Mountains (Tongass National Forest)

Tunnel Mountain is 1,000 feet above the floor of the gulch.





This steel bridge, constructed in 1901. It was the tallest cantilever bridge in the world. Used until 1969.






White Pass Summit (elevation 2,865 feet) - The US/Canadian border
The engine getting ready to change directions at the Summit

Heading back down


Denver Glacier Trail leads to the base of the glacier

Red Onion Saloon (left) and City of Skagway Visitor's Center (right)
Looking down Broadway St


Wells Fargo Bank
Golden North Hotel - built in 1898 as a 2-story hotel. In 1908, it was moved to it's present location, a 3rd story and golden dome were added.

Skagway Brewing Co, est. 1897


My bike tour started right past the Summit, at approximately 3,000 ft
Mountain Goats

A quick stop at Bridal Veil Falls
The Coral Princess was the only ship in town on this day.
   
Links:

White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad

 

Bike Tour - Sockeye Cycle Company. This was a fun tour. Only the guide, myself and another lady from the cruise ship were brave (or crazy) enough to ride down the Klondike Trail on a bike in the cold.  We stopped a few times to sightsee and thankfully, there was only one challenging hill to ride up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Skagway was known to thousands of hopeful gold rushers as the gateway to the gold fields.  Although it boasted the shortest route to the Klondike, it was far from being the easiest.  Over a hundred years ago, the White Pass route through the Coast Mountains and the shorter but steeper, Chilkoot Trail were used by countless stampeders.  The treacherous Chilkoot Trail, combined with the area's cruel elements, left scores dead.  The gold rush was a boon to Skagway - by 1898, it was Alaska's largest town with a population of about 20,000.  The town's hotels, saloons, dance halls and gambling houses prospered drawing Skagway's residents as well as the 10,000 people living in the tent city of nearby Dyea.  But when the gold yield dwindled in 1900, so did the population of Skagway as the miners quickly shifted to new finds in Nome.  Today, Skagway has less than 1,000 residents (700 was the number I found) but it retains the flavor of the gold rush era, especially on Broadway (the main street) with it's false-front buildings and in the Trail of '98 Museum with its outstanding collection of memorabilia.  (History taken from the Princess Patter, provided on cruise ship)

The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad -
Timeline:
1898 - Gold discovered in Bonanza Creek in the Klondike.
May 28, 1898 - Construction begins on the WP&YR
July 6, 1899 - 1st train reaches Lake Bennett. Train brought back $500,000 of Klondike gold.
July 29, 1900 - Construction completed
1954 - Transition from steam to diesel electric power.
1982 - World metal prices plummeted, mines closed and the WP&YR suspends operations.
1988 - Reopens as a narrow gauge excursion railroad.
1994 - WP&YR was designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

35,000 men worked on the construction of the railroad.  The $10 million project was the product of British financing, American engineering and Canadian contracting. 

The WP&YR rail fleet consists of 20 diesel-electric locomotives, 80 restored and replica passenger coaches and 2 steam locomotives (including Engine No. 69).  The WP&YR passenger coaches are named after lakes and rivers in Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia and are on average 40 years old.  The oldest car, Lake Emerald, was built in 1883.