When we awoke
this morning, we were already docked at Skagway. The view off
our private balcony (!!) was of a large cliff face covered with
graffiti. Sailor grafiti - names of ships and captains and others
that have voyaged to Skagway since Gold Rush times. Skagway was
the jumping-off point for the "Stampeders" (like California's
49ers), who then hiked over the mountain passes to Whitehorse
and Dawson in the Yukon.
So our task today was another bus tour, this time to the Yukon. And today was another comedic driver/guide. Like the driver in Fairbanks who looked and acted like Whoopi Goldberg, today's driver was Josh, a look- and act-alike Jim Carrey. And he was very funny. He made the three-hour trip fly by. And he was a photographer, and knew all the good picture stops. Our destination was a small old town in the Yukon called Carcross. We had a barbecue chicken lunch there, and partook of the rather rustic tourist attractions (see picture). The town was small cabins, a few stores and boardwalks instead of sidewalks. And mud. Very Gold Rush-ish.
For the return trip to Skagway, we took the train, the White Pass and Yukon Railroad, a working freight and passenger line built during the Gold Rush. The 65-mile trip was through the most scenic areas yet. The cars were reproduction 1890's parlor cars (one was an original), and we wound around the sides of very steep mountains, through tunnels and over bridges, taking pictures the whole while.
En route we realized that we had left the digital camera's small leather case on the bus. More importantly, the three SmartMedia cards holding the nearly-400 pictures from the last ten days were in it. After the initial panic, we realized we had two hours to locate the bus (before the ship sailed), get to it and retrieve the case.
But when we pulled into the station, who was standing there with the case in his hands but Josh, our Jim Carrey look-alike bus driver. He received a big wifely hug and a cash reward. He appreciated both. So instead of spending our last few hours in Skagway chasing down our camera case, we went shopping.
At 8 pm we set sail for Juneau. That's tomorrow.