Skagway

4-21-2015

     Skagway is awesome. The first thing we did was drive down Dyea road, which is a long, scenic road that winds around the bay and ends at a serene little campground area. As soon as I stepped out of the car I liked the place. It smelled like the rainforest in Washington: the smell of spring times three. Swainsons Thrushes were singing their eery, single long whistles, always in a flat key. It's beautiful to hear. Everything was green and the forest floor was covered in moss, but the trees weren't dripping with it. It was heaven.

      Just past the campground is the site of the original gold rush town, now completely grown over, with nothing but an odd false storefront or old boot to show that it ever existed. There's also a cemetery way out in the woods, down a two track dirt road, full of the graves of people who lost their lives in the Palm Sunday Avalanche on the Chilkoot Trail back in 1898. An estimated 65 people died, but not all the graves were in the Slide Cemetery. A lot were sent home to families who requested it. We wandered around and read the signs that told the story, then headed back to town. 

     The town of Skagway itself was a neat town, but it was closed. Really, the whole town was closed. It was like Mackinac Island in the off season. There was one restaurant/bar open, with a few locals inside, just off the main street. The main street itself was pretty cool, all the buildings were old but fixed up nicely, and it felt like walking through a legitimate old western town back in its heyday. But every building was either empty or in the process of being set up for the coming summer. We got lucky and caught a few park rangers setting up their building, so we stopped by and said hi. They let us in and we chatted for a bit, and they gave us a good food recommendation. It was for the brewery down the street but they didn't open until 5:00. We had tickets for the ferry that was leaving for Haines at 8:00 and we had to be there by 7:00. We decided that was still enough time to have a beer and a snack, plus it was the only place open to kill time, so we went. 

     The beer was good but it was really expensive. The food was excellent. I had a crab and artichoke spinach dip (with homemade bread slices!) that was delicious, even though it was made with overly frozen spinach. I'm not even counting that against them because it's unfair to expect such a remote place, in a cold climate, to have oodles of fresh spinach. Luke had a burger that was also quite good. I hardly even got to steal a few bites because it was so good he didn't put it down. 

     Pretty soon we had to leave to catch the ferry, so off we went. It wasn't hard to find, it was right down Main Street by the huge docks meant for the cruise ships. We waited a little over an hour because we had to be the last ones on since we were one of the first ones off. Haines was just the first stop of many. The ferry was headed all the way down to Ketchikan. I know because we ran into a guy setting up his sleeping pad and sleeping bag on a lounge chair on the top deck in the back. The deck was shaped kind of like a big oval room with the back half of its walls missing. The front had windows but they were blocked by the smoke stacks. We were all well protected from the wind, but it was still cold, and the view wasn't great. 

    I let my desire for warmth take charge and I headed down to an indoor deck with a better view. Turns out that was a good choice because there were orcas in the bay and I was glad I could see, even if we only saw dorsal fins. The sun was already well below the mountains and the lighting was flat, so I decided not to take pictures. They were kinda far away anyways. I hope I get another chance to see orcas or whales sometime this summer, hopefully up close, although now is the prime time. 

     Not long after that it was full dark, and I just slept until the boat stopped. We rushed back to our car to get off in Haines, and just drove to the first suitable place we could find; a half closed campground, where we slept in the back of the car for the night.