The Hauptmann's: Day 7 Skagway

Early this morning we entered the Lynn Canal named for Kings Lynn, the town where George Vancouver was born.

Skagway is located in a narrow glaciated valley at the head of the Taiya Inlet, the north end of the Lynn Canal, which is the most northern fjord on the Inside Passage.

This is looking out into the Lynn Canal.

Erik and I are about to start an amazing day filled with incredible scenery and history. Bruce, a long time inhabitant of Skagway, was our tour guide and history teacher for the day. He explained to us that many Alaskans spend 4 months of the summer working in someway with tourists. The rest of the year they work on their regular livelihood. Bruce deals in woolly mammoth tusks. Since woolly mammoth are extinct it is not an illegal trade. He has connections in the mining industry as well as with native Alaskans. His goal is 1000 lbs a yr but he has gotten as much as 1700 in 1 yr. He also carves the ivory. Schindler Carvings For centuries the coastal hunters of Alaska's Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea carved walrus ivory for tools and adornment. Chips would come off the tusks when roughing out a shape with stones. Native Alaskans find these chips which Bruce polishes and is showing above.

This map shows the route we traveled. We took the South Klondike Highway north through British Columbia into The Yukon Territory. We returned on the WP & YR Railroad.

Map of the Inside Passage showing Skagway at the northern most point.

Map of the Yukon Territory with Skagway, Alaska in the lower left corner.

Map of the Dyea and Skagway routes to Lake Bennett.

Skagway is surrounded by 7000' Coast Mountains. The Tlingit people fished and hunted here. The word Skagway comes from the Tlingit word Skagua meaning, "wind on the water." In 1887 William Moore, hired to map the 141 st Meridian, the boundary between Canada and the US, claimed 160 acres at the mouth of the Skagway River.

The only route north to Lake Bennett was an Tlingit trade route that began at Dyea. The Chilkoot Pass was rough and rugged. Moore and a Tagish Indian Skookum (meaning strong) Jim
headed north to chart an easier route to Lake Bennett. It was named White Pass for the Canadian Minister of the Interior.

In 1896, with the discovery of gold in the Klondike region of Canada's Yukon Territory William Moore's 160 acres was over run with men who had no regard for laws and property rights. Many, realizing how difficult the 600 miles over treacherous and dangerous trails and water ways opened businesses on the muddy streets of Skagway. With a population of 10,000 Skagway became the busiest city in Alaska. The current population is 860.

Officials in Canada required each prospector entering Canada to bring 1 ton of supplies with them. Three thousand horses died on the White pass Trail because of the tortures of the trail and inexperience of the stampeders.

While we were learning all about the history of the gold rush and taking in the rugged beauty, my parents took the kids on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway which we would be traveling back on later in the day.

Erica took great pictures of my parents.

The conductor went and got the kids snowballs. They tried to save the snowballs as long as they could before they melted.

I was able to find a few flowers.

The area is full of beautiful lakes.

Jack London and Robert Service wrote about the brutality of the men traveling the White Pass.

Robert Service wrote, "there are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold; the arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold; the Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see was the night on the marge of Lake Leberge..." The Cremation of Sam McGee is one of Robert Service's most well known poems. Lake Legerge is a widening of the Yukon River north of Whitehorse in the Yukon. The weather is harsh with extreme winds and large waves, the prospectors passed by on their way down the Yukon to Dawson City.

Lake Bennett is at Carcross (originally Caribou Crossing) a fishing and hunting camp for Tlingit and Tagish people named for the migration of huge numbers of caribou. The caribou population was decimated during the Klondike goldrush. Once the men carried their loads over the White Pass they built rafts to float down the Yukon River to Dawson City, Yukon. By May 1898, the Mounted Police counted 1,826 rafts under construction.

The Carcross "desert" is actually deposited silt. A large glacial lake dried leaving the desert behind. The area isn't a true desert, it receives about 50 cm of rain a year.

For lunch we stopped Caribou Crossing Trading Post - Carcross, Yukon Territory. The owner caters to the tourists during the summer and is a taxidermist by trade. He has a museum featuring animals from the Yukon. The woolly mammoth was found in the tundra and recreated using bison hides.

This Ice Age Steppe Bison was found with the two lions in the tundra.

We had the opportunity to meet a dog musher, Michelle Phillips. Pristine Wilderness Tours - About Michelle Phillips and Ed Hopkins We were able to see her kennels, sled, and equipment.

We were so sad we didn't bring the kids because the area where the pups are kept was open for visiting.

After lunch we traveled north to Emerald Lake. On sunny days the light reflects off white deposits of marl, a mixture of clay and calcium carbonate at the bottom of the shallow waters giving it an intense green color. The high concentration of calcium carbonate in the water some from limestone ground off the mountain by glaciers. Glacial erosion also scooped out the shallow lakebed.

Dandelions are everywhere. We don't have these in HI. The are Erica's favorite flower now.

The Yukon Highway is actually gravel.

Never Cry Wolf was filmed in this area.

At Fraser, BC we got on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway and headed back to Skagway.

The White Pass & Yukon Route climbs 3,000' in 20 miles. The tight curves required a narrow gauge. The rails were 3' apart, on a 10' wide road bed, covering 110 miles. Two groups worked at the same time meeting in the middle. During the winter they worked -60 degree weather. By the time the railway was completed the gold rush was largely over.

The tracks run along the origional White Pass the men took.

In 1969 a tunnel replaced the origional bridge that went around the mountain.

The White Pass was also called the Dead Horse Trail.

Dandilions for Erica.

In 1897 George Brackett advertized a wagon road as an easy through route across the White Pass. He charged 2 cents per pound (remember-they had to carry 1 ton of supplies), $1 for each horse, and $10 per wagon for use of his "road." In the lawless wilderness the tolls went unpaid but the WP & YR paid Brackett $60,000 for the right of way to his road.

At one point the river has class 6 rapids.

In 1897 Skagway was a lawless town. The most colorful resident was Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, a sophisticated swindler who ran a ring of thieves and con men who swindled prospectors. He ran a private militia, the newspaper, the Deputy Marshall and his telgraph office charged $5 to send messages anywhere in the world-there was no telegraph service in Skagway until 1901. Smith was shot and killed in July 1898 and is burried in the grave yard above.

Skagway had 80 saloon and houses of "negotiable affections." The Red Onion was one of those. There are 100 historic buildings from the gold rush eras. One is the Jeff Smith Parlor where Soapy ran his opperations-(I forgot to up load the picture).