earendel's "North to Alaska" trip - Day 5

[earendel]

This was the last day of our time onboard - the ship docked in the morning in Skagway, AK. We had to complete a customs form since we started from a Canadian port, and show our passports as we debarked.

Skagway has made a conscious effort to try and look like an "old-timey" town, similar to how it did in its heyday during the gold rush days. Many of the buildings have false fronts, for instance, and there are wooden "boardwalks" in place of the sidewalks. Most of the shops are pitched toward the tourist trade, and there is a "brothel museum" near where our hotel was. As a parenthetical remark I add that most of the places we stayed during the land portion of our tour were Westmark hotels, which are owned by the same corporation that owns Holland-America. The room was quite nice, although (and this would be the case throughout) the mattress was not very comfortable. The room also had several occupants when we got there - Alaska's "other state bird", the mosquito, and quite large ones they were. Several of the gift shops were selling "skeeter swatters" which were like tennis rackets but with a kick - they were battery-powered and sent a mild charge through the grid.

The most famous (or infamous) person in Skagway during the gold rush days was "Soapy" Smith, who ran a team of grifters and con men to help separate the "stampeders" from their gold, sometimes even before they'd made it to the gold fields. Evidently one of his most successful scams was to convince people to pay him to send telegrams back to their loved ones in the states, letting them know that they had arrived safely. Smith also guaranteed a response within an hour. The catch was that there were no telegraph lines in Skagway, so he pocketed whatever the poor stampeder paid. And inevitably the "reply" would ask the stampeder to send home some money, which Smith pocketed also.

We ate lunch at a restaurant that featured Greek, Italian and Mexican cuisines. It was run by a Greek couple, but they knew their Mexican and Italian, too. elwing had a pasta dish and I had enchiladas and they were as good as if they had come from an actual ethnic restaurant. The prices, needless to say, were fairly steep (looking back at my receipts I see that the two cheese enchiladas I had were $9.50).

As part of the tour we received a bus tour of Skagway and its environs and heard a lot about the gold rush. The National Park Service has a visitor center that has artifacts from the gold rush days, including a list of the items that had to be a part of the 2000 pounds of goods that each would-be miner had to have in order to be allowed into Canada (more about this later). There was also stuff about the purchase of Alaska ("Seward's Folly"). One thing that I could never get an answer to was why Alaska's border ran so straight for so long, but then veered off and ran down the Pacific coast. The straight part was the result of negotiations between Russia and Britain, establishing the 141st meridian as the border between Russian Alaska and Canada. But that doesn't explain the "tail" that includes Skagway and Juneau. One NPS employee said that the border connected the peaks of the tallest mountains in the Alaska range, but couldn't explain why that had been decided upon as the border.

[ne1410s]

ear:

had to be a part of the 2000 pounds of goods that each would-be miner had to have in order to be allowed into Canada

We had to show the border guard our cash when my cousin and I drove to Alaska. Yes, he made us actually get out the money. This was supposedly to assure them that we had enough funds to get to our destination--Fairbanks. Oh, and they asked if we had any guns.


Ear, I appreciate you putting your experiences down for us to read. I can live with vicarious trips...

[ulysses5019]

We ate lunch at a restaurant that featured Greek, Italian and Mexican cuisines. It was run by a Greek couple, but they knew their Mexican and Italian, too. elwing had a pasta dish and I had enchiladas and they were as good as if they had come from an actual ethnic restaurant. The prices, needless to say, were fairly steep (looking back at my receipts I see that the two cheese enchiladas I had were $9.50).

So, Soapy Smith's spirit still lives.