And now we're back in Alaska...

We got up this morning and took our time getting ready. We're going to Skagway, AK today and it's only 273.8 kilometers to our next destination. On top of that, we're gaining an hour again since we're going back into Alaska. The weather is just great, we woke up to a mostly sunny day. Contrary to the weather forecast, that promised a cloudy, cool day, we had mostly sunny weather all day with temperatures in the high teens (C).

We took the Klondike Highway again, this time going south from Whitehorse. We will now have travelled the entire Klondike Highway from Skagway to Dawson City, just like the stampeders did, only it was just a tad easier for us.

The first stop for us was the little town of Carcross. We picked up a coffee and checked out this historic little town. It was of course also a major part of the gold rush of 1898. At this point Bennett Lake flows into Tagish Lake from which the Yukon River flows. This is also the end of the White Pass & Yukon Railroad nowadays which provides tourist train service between Carcross and Skagway. The railroad goes through spectacular scenery in the canyons and mountains of the coastal mountains here. We did see a lot of that also along the Klondike Highway. Again, it's hard to describe the natural beauty of this part of the Yukon, BC and Alaska (all 3 provinces and state are coming together here). We crossed the White Pass at an elevation of 1018m or, for our American friends, 3339.9 ft (got to be exact eh?).

Other than common birds, we saw no wild animals today, except some teenagers maybe. Skagway is a delightful small town, almost entirely dedicated to tourism. When we arrived, already three cruise ships were in port. There were 2 gigantic Princess Line ships and 1 Holland America ship, the Ryndam. It looked exactly like the Zaandam we've been on a numbers of years ago and I suspect they are sister ships. Of course that also meant that about 8000 people from the ships were swarming the streets of Skagway.

We visited the local historical sights and learned a bit more about the gold rush of 1898 that created this town. Actually, it was the town of Dyea that expanded from a small Indian village to a raucous frontier town of 10,000 in the space of a couple of years. Dyea is where the Chilcoot pass trail starts that most of the stampeders climbed as the first part of their trials to the goldfields of the Klondike. Skagway was build a little after when the White Pass & Yukon Railroad had been constructed across the White Pass to link Skagway to Whitehorse. Unfortunately, shortly after the railroad was completed, the gold rush was over. Today, Skagway is enjoying a different gold rush, namely the tourism income generated mostly by the cruise ships that are docking here frequently.

We visited the ghost town of Dyea, a harrowing unpaved mountain goat trail with sheer drops on one side of the mountain (Annie just loved it). The town is almost totally gone. After the gold rush ended, it was abandoned and all that you can see is a bit of rotting lumber spread all over the place. We did see the trail head of the Chilcoot trail and walked the first few hundred yards of it. The forest here is typical Pacific rain forest, lush and green with a lot of moss and succulent vegetation everywhere.

We also visited the local pioneer cemetery in Skagway which was interesting in that it seemed most of the deaths occured in 1898 no doubt due to the hardships the people encountered here when they were totally unprepared for the harsh conditions. There was a trail from the cemetery to a spectacular waterfall (the lower Reid Waterfall) where of course we had to take a number of pictures.

In town, there was an old steam powered rotary railway snowplow on display. This monster snowplow was constructed in 1897 and was in use until well into the 1960's. It was used to plow the snow in the White Pass and along the White Pass & Yukon rail line. The movable "knifes" were necessary to cut the hard packed (like ice) snow which then was ejected about 120 ft to either side and up. It must have been a spectacular sight. The steam engine in the vehicle was solely for powering the rotating "snow wheel". The whole affair, complete with tender, was pushed along by two steam locomotives and the ubiquitous caboose completing the short train.

We again saw lots of different wildflowers that had to be admired and photographed. We are here at the right time of the year apparently to enjoy all these flowers. The lilacs are just getting in bloom as well making them about a month later than back home.

We've been driving through magnificent mountain ranges these past 10 days or so. I am reminded once again how God has created everything around us with exquisite beauty and purpose. I'm also reminded of one of my favourite songs "God on the Mountain" sung by by my favourite gospel singer Lynda Randle. Click on the link to the YouTube clip if you want to hear her.

If I appear in most of the pictures, it is because Annie is the main camera operator. Doesn't she do a great job? I think so too :-)

Annie did a bit of shopping and I'm doing the blogs. We went to a nice little fish restaurant and had a great meal. Well good people that's about it for today again. BTW, for those of you trying to post comments to my blog, you need to set up a Google account before you can do that. Another way to drop us a line is to email us at our GMAIL address.