Fantasy Caravan Day 51 - Bus, Boat, Train, and Skagway

On Sunday, Fantasy had arranged a tour for us to Skagway, Alaska -- another 12 hour tour day -- are they *trying* to kill us??? A bus picked us up in the campground and took us to a passenger ferry...

... where he dropped us off, the Cunard Queen Elizabeth was docked -- wow! We get to go on that???

... No, we're on the Fairweather Express I.

Since we had a boat trip scheduled, of course it was rainy!

Carl and I went to the upper deck where we could look over the shoulder of the captain.

When we got into Skagway, we saw that there were several cruise ships in port.

"Welcome to Skagway, Alaska"

We walked into town with others from our group... this proved to be problematic later in the day when we were returning to the harbor -- we had not paid attention to our surroundings!

We found ourselves on the main street (Broadway)...

... the buildings have been fronted to look as they would have during the days of the Klondike Gold Rush.

Except if you looked down the street toward the harbor and saw what looked to be a cruise ship about to come up Broadway!

Looking the other way up Broadway.

There were several buildings in town part of a National Historic site, one was Reinert's Mascot Saloon.

Again, it was set up to emulate its look in the gold rush era.

You might have wondered about the electric lights...

... but that was part of the time!

Headlines from a paper April 13, 1910

A coin-operated player piano

Women (and children) could not come in the front door of the saloon...

... but there was an accommodation made via the Family Entrance around the side!

Many of the retail establishments in town were essentially gift shops provided by the cruise ships -- we had been told to look for the "Buy the Bear" symbol that marked locally owned and operated stores.

We saw interesting statues in one store -- made of metal figures cast inside Lucite...

... they were beautiful. (https://starliteoriginals.com/)

There's a video about their manufacturing process on their website: https://starliteoriginals.com/manufacturing-process/

In the afternoon, Fantasy had arranged for us to take a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad (https://wpyr.com/).

We were all seated in one car (other passengers were in the other cars) -- the lady who handled the boarding congratulated Juli (our Wagon Master) on having a very organized group!

Along the route we passed the train yard where one of the old steam locomotives was located.

A view of the cars behind us as we passed around a curve and over a bridge.

At the border crossing (some miles from the actual border), a sign had been painted on the rocks, "On to Alaska with Buchanan"

This sign is referring to George E. Buchanan, a Detroit coal merchant who began bringing boys and girls to Alaska on adventure trips in 1923. For fifteen years, groups of approximately 50 young people, mostly boys, made the annual summer excursion from Detroit to Alaska. Reportedly, the boys from one of the summer trips painted the sign "On To Alaska With Buchanan" on the side of the mountain to commemorate their inspiring leader. (https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg11/id/17921/)

Stove (probably kerosene) in each railroad car provided heat

Outside area available for getting fresh air or photos! Note that there was no outside standing room for the car in front of us as the locomotive was in front of us.

Our group in the car

View of the folks outside from the next train car -- we were cautioned not to try to cross between train cars while the train was in motion.

A view along the way

Another train coming down the mountain as we were headed up

Looking ahead as we were going into a tunnel

An old bridge...

... thankfully no longer in use!

Guy holding onto Cindy (we were kidding that he was keeping her from jumping, but he was steadying her for taking pictures!).

Back in town -- a railroad snowplow

We had heard about the loss of the Princess Sophia when we were on the boat back from Juneau on Saturday.

Another view down Broadway (you can still see the ship at the end of the street) -- so much prettier in the sunshine!

This is a picture of what Broadway looked like in the Klondike Gold Rush era.

Artist's depiction of one person's story

We were told that the stampeders were stopped at the border (at the top of the mountain that our train traveled to) if they did not have sufficient supplies to meet their needs -- it took them many journeys up and down the mountain to the border to have enough goods (1 ton) to cross the border -- and they still had many hundreds of miles to travel after they crossed the border to get to Dawson City where the gold had been found.

For many (most?) of them, by the time they got to Dawson, all the claims had been filed, and they just had to turn around and head back home.

We caught the "fast ferry" back to Haines, had the same bus driver who had picked us up in the morning (but a different bus, the accelerator pedal on the morning bus had split apart so he had to pick up a different bus!) and got home by about 9pm -- tiring but enjoyable day!