Skagway, Alaska

Gateway to the Klondike and onetime worldwide sensation, Skagway is now a small town, with almost as many gift shops as residents (not literally, but closer than you’d think). Today there were 4 cruise ships descending on this town with about 850 year round residents, and a ton of seasonal workers catering to the railroad, stores and restaurants, national park facilities, helicopter tours, etc. our day was windy and very brisk, but unusually dry without daytime rain.

Our day began with a 9 AM three hour ride on the white pass and Yukon railroad. The railroad dates back to 1898 construction, 1900 opening, and it climbs 3000 feet in 20 miles over one of the two routes to the Klondike gold regions. It is a narrow gauge railroad because of the right turns necessitated by the terrain, and served many years related to serving the gold and ore industry. This was the train we rode on.
By the 1980’s the railroad closed due to lack of precious metals value, and in 1988 it began a renewed life as a tourist transport service. They have numerous passenger cars, the oldest dating to 1883, each is named after a lake or river in Alaska, British Columbia or the Yukon
The railroad has two vintage steam engines and several modern diesel electric locomotives. This is smoother train that we saw heading the opposite direction, but our train has a modern diesel-electric locomotive painted in the traditional yellow and green White Pass Railroad colors.

The National Park Service has a large presence in this town as the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. They tell the detailed story of the 1890’s gold rush here, that only lasted two years.

This is the Captain William Moore’s cabin, dating back to approximately 1887. The area was called Shghagwei by the Tingit Natives (later anglicized to Skagway), and Moore arrived predicting a major gold strike and saw Skagway as the obvious gateway to the gold fields. They acquired land, built this cabin (oldest structure remaining) and began opening the White Pass Trail accessing the gold fields over the summit.

Meanwhile his son married a local Tingit woman, and they started a family in a small home near the cabin, while the family made money supplying goods to gold seekers and charging ships to dock at their wharf. Eventually the interracial marriage caused tensions in the family and community, and the son and his wife moved away from Skagway.

This is the Moore’s eventual homestead, a small house they expanded over the years
The Moore’s parlor in unique frontier style
The Moore’s had a pet moose, which unfortunately ate too much clover and perished. So in frontier style, they mounted and prominently displayed their pet’s head
Jeff Smith’s Parlor, undoubtedly one of the most bizarre NPS sites we’ve ever seen. It’s a nondescript long shed-like structure that requires timed entry tickets to see.
This is a life size animatronic of Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, a notorious conman who operated his swindling business out of the building for a short time before his death in a gunfight. His moniker “soapy” derived from his con game of selling bars of soap some of which contained cash bills within. Of course only members of his gang would get the winning bars of soap, but they duped many victims out of money thru the scheme.
Also within the parlor is this funky/scary taxidermy, here depicting a devilish skull and antlers, and two adult moose locked in battle. Though it appears to be two actual moose, it is really the furs of four moose, used to recreate the scene, because . . .
. . . This is the original moose now in the parlor. When found they were only bones, and some frontier entrepreneur thought it a good oddity to add to this bizarre parlor.

The other unusual aspect of the parlor tour was that our guide was extremely enthusiastic but brand new. So he told us far too many stories of the owners of the parlor throughout history, but didn’t even know how to turn on the light switches. This we stood in a dark room while he lectured, until I found the switches on the back wall🙃

The end of Soapy Smith, not that our tour guide really described many of these oddities on the walls, but this clearly showed Smith after he lost his last gunfight.