Before we left home, we had done some research on the weather forecast in the ports we were going to visit in Alaska. Sad to say, rain was in the reports each and every day. And the worst day was going to be Skagway, which had predicted flash flood warnings. In all of our visits to that town, we seldom had experienced much rain, let alone flooding. However, we are happy to report that the floods never came and the rain was light. No big deal especially with the right rain gear and umbrellas for walking. And it wasn't that cold with a high of 59 degrees.
The population of Skagway today is about 1240 residents, although only 800 remain in the winter months, and more arrive for the tourist season where the numbers climb to 2500. Their schools have a number of 130 students K – 12. Their test scores measured highest of any district in Alaska. Three hydroelectric facilities provide all the power they need. During the summer solstice, there are 19 hours of daylight. Skagway gets up to 26 inches of rain a year and 39 inches of snow in town. Compare that to Ketchikan where they get 14 feet of rain, it is much drier up here. And for that reason, the trees are smaller in this part of Alaska.
They expect cruising to continue to grow with 1.1 million cruise ship guests arriving this year. The median household income is $71,875. The largest employers are the visitor and transportation industries and government. A copper mine currently uses the port for shipping. Basic prices of unleaded gas was about $5.50 a gallon, while milk sold for $8. a gallon. Houses were listed at about $500,000. And thanks to the visitor center for providing many useful brochures and maps to find this information. We made a stop there on our way back after lunch and are now armed with lots of helpful hints for our next two visits here.
We began our morning with another lovely breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill. The one thing we miss here has to be the windows. To make up for that, the manager Endrian has been most friendly. We were sad to hear that three of the top dining room managers will be heading for home in Indonesia before the start of the Tales of the South Pacific. They are Komang, Pande, and Endrian. All of our buddies. They have been at sea for over 6 months, and are looking forward to seeing their families on Bali. They have admitted that their wives have long "honey-do" lists waiting for them.
We left the ship around 9:30am, feeling that we were forgetting something. Once out on the pier, one of us realized they left their wallet onboard. That is not the first time we have done that, so one waited and the other went back. Only took a few minutes, and since we were on our own hiking trek, we were not holding anyone up. Different story if we had been on a ship's tour.
Right off of the dock, we saw the fish ladders with salmon struggling to get upstream. Many were floating dead as well. A harbor seal was working the waters too. This has to be the first time we have seen the salmon run in Skagway. According to the information on the signage along Pullen Creek, these are the pink or humpback salmon. So we decided to take the Pullen Creek walk, checking out the shallow waters and the banks along the narrow trail. It was full of salmon, both alive and dead. Some were in the process of spawning. Most were beaten up, and would die soon. That is when they become fertilizer for the cedar, alder, birch, Douglas fir, cottonwood, and mountain ash trees. Despite the decaying fish, there was not a bad odor. If there was, we would have to watch out for bears.
This is also the area where the White Pass & Yukon Route trains run from the dock to deep into the Yukon Territory. We have done a trip on one of those trains years ago, and it was really nice. Of course, we were lucky enough to have had a sunny day. Today was sort of dismal for photos, but we are sure the folks will enjoy the ride. By the way, we were not the only ship in town as the NCL's Sun was docked when we arrived. There were plenty of excursions offered today – most of them involving the train. There were several options of how far into Canada you preferred to go. And those who entered Canada had to bring along their passports. As of last evening, the prices had not been posted on the interactive TV, so I failed to get them. Still do not have a cell phone for their Navigator app, and we don't intend to get one anytime soon. We did see the city tour coach filled with folks paying $50 to see the town and the famous cemetery with a stop at the Red Onion Saloon. It's a nice and easy way to get around.
We made our way up Broadway after leaving Pullen Creek, and wandered past their small park, restrooms, and the museum, which appeared to be closed. We continued past many homes, the hospital, fire and police department, and RV parks to the Klondike Highway, which crosses the Skagway River. A road to the right near the river and the train yard leads to Gold Rush Cemetery and lower Reid Falls. Since it is almost a 1/2 mile more to reach it, we decided to save that for next time. The river was rushing pretty good with a milky-like blue color to the water. It must be from glacial melt. We could not see any sign of salmon in this river.
Down off the road, we walked to a newly-built covered staging area where concerts must take place. There were fields for baseball and soccer and a food shack complete with restrooms. There was only one fellow walking his Basset hound there today. If you continued on the Klondike Highway, you would reach Carcross and Whitehorse, 110 miles away, which was the route the buses took today as well as the train. It was getting close to noontime, and we were hoping to find the best pizza in town at the Station Bar and Grill back in town. We had researched their opening time and despite being closed for lunch last year, we were delighted to find the café opened for business when we arrived at 1pm. We were lucky to find an empty table and order two Alaskan Amber draft beers. Our choice today was a 14 inch Hawaiian pizza topped with pineapple, Canadian bacon, and plenty of cheese. It had to be the best pizza in all of Alaska, just liked we remembered it. We will definitely be back next week and the following week.
On the way back, we stopped at the Klondike Doughboy, where we had watched a gal deep fry a special treat last year. They are called Alaskan fry bread, coated with cinnamon sugar, and served warm. Since we had a big lunch back then, we didn't try it, but today we did. The bread was a plate-size thin donut-like sweet dough, crispy with the sugar topping. Boy, was that good. A couple of ravens landed at our feet to beg, but we had read not to feed the animals so we didn't except for a few crumbs. This shop also sold jams, jellies, and reindeer sausage.
Across the street, we went into another store that was selling among other things…popcorn in many different flavors. We chose a bag of caramel popcorn for a room snack. Our final stop was going through a few shops to look for Lazy One sleep t's. They had none this year. So we do know where to find them in Ketchikan.
It was still raining lightly when we got back to the ship by 4pm, and we worked on photo downloading until it was time for dinner. With all of the fresh air and walking, I have to admit I was exhausted. Good time to read all of the brochures we had collected along our hike today.
We really were not all that hungry for dinner (gee I don't know why), so we ordered a salad, soup, and chicken cordon bleu for our mains. The French onion soup was a new recipe and served in a regular soup bowl, not like the old lidded urn. It was much better than I recall on the other ships. Passing on dessert always disappoints our waiter. He did offer to do a trick, but we assured him we had seen the toothpick and the wine glass trick. Truthfully, we think he was relieved as it doesn't always work that easily.
Looking forward to Glacier Bay tomorrow. Hope it doesn't rain too much.
Bill & Mary Ann
