Day 22 was in port at Skagway. I have to say this is the cutest little town! The main street is pretty much as it was back in the days it was a hub for the gold miners. It it one main street and a population of 1000 people. It doubles over summer with tourist season. The gold itself was a 600 mile journey over the Klondike Summot and into the Yukon but because of the harbour, Skagway made a good base for them to start their journey and collect supplies. All of the old buildings down Broadway had the original facades, but buildings built behind them that are more modern as originally they would have been tents set up behind the facades so it would look like a proper town but was just a shanty setup.
The first thing that struck us before we even got off the ship was the insignia painted on the cliff face of the port of a heap of different ships. This is a tradition started a long time ago, that the crew of a ship would paint this on the cliff face for their ship the first time it ever cisited that port. The height of it reflected the amount of respect the crew had for their Captain. Apparently there are some so low you can't see them during high tide.
They stil have the original White Pass & Yukon Railroad train that takes you to the Canadian border and the summit. It is quite a feature in town, but the tracks that used to run down the main street have been moved to run beside town now.
Our morning consisted of shopping and exploring and we headed on a journey to the Klondike Summit which is around 3200 feet above sea level. We stopped off at a little place off the side roof the Klondike Highway called Liarsville which is like a little shanty town where the media were based during the gold rush. As you van imagine the stories coming back from the Yukon were few and not very interesting as it was extremely hard to get to and to be allowed over the Canadian border you had to have 1 tonne of goods (which would take an average man 40 trips) so a lot gave up and never found any gold. Because of this the journalists did what any self respecting journalist would do and made stuff up. Consequently this fuelled the gold rush and brought in loads of prospectors as they made it out to be a pretty simple task to hop over a hill and grab some gold. Hence once people learned the truth they earned the name of Liarsville.
They have it set up like it would have been back in the day, and they let you do some gold panning. They collect dirt from the stream running through the camp and teach you how to pan. We got 2 decent little nuggets each....but certainly wont get rich quick doing it that way! This was one of Logan's must do activities as Klondike and Yukon are quite heavily featured on the Goldrush programmes he watches.
After Liarsville we headed to the Klondike Summit which takes you over the Canadian border. You travel through about a mile of no man's land as the border controls are around a mile apart and they shut them between 11pm and 7am! On the way up you go through Dead Horse Gulch which got its name because thousands of horses died there. The miners would head up to the summit and under such treacherous terrain and 100 mile per hour winds people and horses often fell. The miners so blinded by gold fever old remove all of their supplies from the horse and leave them there to starve to death while they carried on their journey. At the top we stopped in Tormented Valley, which is a little like been desperate in looks but obviously pretty high up. They have a lot of filming done up there as it is such foreign looking terrain but quite quick to get to from Skagway. The trees all get shorter and shorter as you get higher because of the conditions and all they really grows is Locoweed that the Mountain Goats eat to get high and dandelions that are a favorite of the bears to get their digestive systems working when they come out of hibernation. Apart from that there is an abundance of Fireweed and not much else.
Interestingly they dont pay a goods tax or income tax in Alaska because of the abundance of oil it provides for the country. There are also a heap of unfinished houses around as if you declare your house as 'unfinished' you don't have to pay house tax. A lot of people build an attached shed to the house and never finish it for that purpose, claiming they are 'working on it'.
The ship had a musher come on board with some of his Alaskan Husky puppies for us to play with. As we didn't managed to do dog sledding we got in on this action! They were gorgeous..about 8-12 weeks old and their fur was beautiful! The one Logan and I got crashed out on the floor for the whole thing.
Day 23 was an early start for Glacier Bay. We had started to think we brought all of our warm.clothes for nothing as it had been warm enough in most of the ports for tshirts or just 2 layers. Once we got to Glacier Bay we needed every layer we had!! We spent about 3 hours out in the freezing cold winds on the bow of the ship to view the glaciers and wildlife. The early morning and freezing temperatures were totally worth it!! Before we saw any glaciers our entry to Glacier Bay was full of otters. We hadn't seen any to date so were stoked to see them diving and floating on their backs fairly close to the ship. We warmed up with a fairly small glacier as we entered the bay and then they just kept coming each one bigger and more vast than the last with hanging glaciers filling the gaps between the tidal glaciers. The last glacier, Marjorie, was 1 mile across and 200ft high which is the equivalent to a 25 story building! It probably also goes down 100ft below sea level as well! We managed to see it valve couple of times which is quite impressive. You see the sheet of ice start to move, and after it has hit the water the sound hits you - it sounds like a low rumbling thunder. You get the odd rumble even when it isn't calving as the ice moves and pushes forward, they move forward 5ft per day!!
The boat rotated in front of the glacier for some time so we got around an hour to really appreciate it and take it all in.
Day 24 started with a sleep in! First one since the start of the cruise so we made the most of it. Today's adventure was College Fjord, where we would see 5 glaciers in the same spot. We spent some time on the deck after breakfast, just for a wander and spotted a pod of dolphins and couple of otters. We had learnt by now to carry our binoculars with us every time we leave the cabin just in case!
Once we got into College Fjord the otters just kept on coming! They look so small from the ship but they are actually around 4ft. There were some lazing on an iceberg and loads swimming and lying on their backs. We had a lone harbour seal showing off that was leaping out of the water and flipping.
Once we got further in to the Fjord the glaciers were stunning! They all hit you at once with the biggest at the end - the Yale Glacier. This one is fed by 4 other glaciers and was the one that carved out the fjord when it was formed. It has obviously receded a lot but is still an impressive 1.5 miles wide and 300ft high. Again the glaciers were cracking as they moved and pushed forward and this one gave us some pretty impressive calving!
It is really hard to describe the majesty of the glaciers, the shear size and the beauty of them with the icebergs floating in the water, the beautiful reflections in the calm turquoise water and the blue glow coming off the glaciers on a cloudy day. So on that note our cruise has come to an end 😔 But on to the next adventure in Fairbanks! We are hoping for some nice weather and crossing our fingers we see the Northern Lights.....some late nights ahead!
Photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsbHvsl8mGaZgd89SQEEHKwlC81HmQ
(I will post these photos when we get to Fairbanks tonight and have wifi again)
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