{"id":9650,"date":"2011-09-20T01:50:33","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T08:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=9650"},"modified":"2011-09-20T01:50:33","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T08:50:33","slug":"skagway-a-jewel-for-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=9650","title":{"rendered":"Skagway a 'Jewel' for Visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>SKAGWAY \u2014 As we walked the streets of this former den of iniquity from Gold Rush days, we were overcome by the number of jewelry stores. They are a constant reminder that if prospectors really did invade this once-lawless town on the Canadian border, take the gold and get out…then they left some behind.<\/p>\n

When confronted with jewelry vendors catering to cruise-ship passengers in many parts of the western world, we have often lamented their presence by saying: “Who buys all this jewelry?”<\/p>\n

In Skagway<\/a>, it was us.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We played right into the hands of the vendors. Having just gotten off the White Pass Yukon Route railway, we walked the streets of Skagway and noticed there was an Alaskan museum on one corner. Even better, it was free. The museum’s front is \u2014 at least in part \u2014 a jewelry store, and it’s called Corrington’s. So you had to walk through it to get to the free museum. We negotiated that part. Getting out was a different story. In reality, purchasing the jewelry was not succumbing to some sales pitch. It was somebody’s birthday, she needed a new bracelet and it’s not likely to happen at another port stop…for another year.<\/p>\n

The museum may turn out to be on our top 10 list for Alaska<\/a>. Okay, top 20. Any place that tells you about a “Bladder Festival” has to be worth a second look, free or not. The short version of the tale is that seal hunters saved and inflated the stomach of the seal and hung it from the rafters of the dance hall, because they believed the spirit of the seal remained in its stomach. The festival followed in the spring, when dances and songs were dedicated to the spirits before returning the bladders to the sea, where they could turn into seals (not sure how) and be caught all over again, all because the deceased seals were treated with such respect.<\/p>\n

Well, you have to admit it’s a good story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Another good story is the WPYR railway ride, one of the shore excursions we signed up for while sailing on the Coral Princess<\/a>, which was making its first port stop since leaving Whittier<\/a>. Having spent two days trying to see impressive glaciers in the rain, we were ready for…seeing the sights of White Pass in the rain. It was actually pretty good, in spite of the precipitation, with the weather’s adding a coat of mist that made the four-hour ride even more sinister.<\/p>\n

The train whistles past a graveyard on its way to the White Pass Summit, where it takes you 100 yards or so across the Canadian border before the return trip to Skagway, again passing the graveyard, not to mention some astounding scenery. The significance of the \"\"<\/a>graveyard is that in it rest Skagway’s two most famous combatants, the scoundrel Soapy Smith and the lawman Frank Reid, who both died after a shootout on the wharf. Legend is Soapy won the shootout because he died instantly while Reid suffered for 12 days with a fatal bullet in his groin.<\/p>\n

Yes, another good story, right.<\/p>\n

Alaska is full of them. It is even more full of jaw-dropping scenery, some of it on the WPYR<\/a> trek to the peak. The elevation changes make you wonder how it was ever built with 19th-century technology, at a time when gold diggers were in a hurry to get to the Yukon, about 120 miles away. Photos never accurately reflect how impressive the scenery is, but the fact that dozens of camera bugs put themselves at modest risk by standing between the railcars gives you an idea.<\/p>\n

There are rocks and waterfalls, tunnels and bridges, one of which we were sure was \"\"<\/a>Alaska’s famous “bridge to nowhere (see photo)” until we remembered that it (a) is in Ketchikan<\/a> and (b) doesn’t exist. The trip is the most popular of all Princess shore excursions, and a nice bookend for it is stopping at the Visitor Center in Skagway to watch an 18-minute video on what it takes to get to Whitehorse (today and 100 years ago) through one of two mountain passes, the Chilkoot and the White Pass.<\/p>\n

The Visitor Center is just down the street from the museum. The one in the back of Corrington’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SKAGWAY \u2014 As we walked the streets of this former den of iniquity from Gold Rush days, we were overcome by the number of jewelry stores. They are a constant reminder that if prospectors really did invade this once-lawless town on the Canadian border, take the gold and get out…then they left some behind. When… Continue reading Skagway a 'Jewel' for Visitors<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,31,36,15],"tags":[45,157,51,64,93,716],"class_list":["post-9650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-ports","category-reviews","category-stories","tag-alaska","tag-alaska-cruises","tag-cruise-ports","tag-princess-cruise","tag-shore-excursions","tag-skagway","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}