GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!

Skagway Harbor

On Thursday morning (June 21st), we awoke to the sun streaming into the RV and the sound of the train pulling in just across the street. We re-awoke to the sounds of more big cruise ships pulling into dock…four of them. A steady flow of tourists walked past the RV park and descended on the little town. They began filling the streets and shops…so we joined them. 

Klondike Gold Rush NHP Visitor Center

We started with the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park visitor center, formerly the White Pass and Yukon Railroad Depot, at 2nd and Broadway where we signed up for a ranger-guided tour for later in the day. We proceeded to walk around town, with the hordes of people, looking at some of the other 21 properties the National Park Service owns in town. We first walked into the restored saloon, The Mascot, on Broadway. This establishment dates to 1898, one of more than 80 saloons in town at the time. It operated until Prohibition shut it down in August 1916.

Soapy Smith's Parlor

We also found Jeff Smith’s Parlor on 2nd Street, named for Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, a legendary con man and leader of, eventually, over 200 gamblers, swindlers and thugs. Soapy was a master of relieving many naïve stampeders of their cash through elaborate trickery and ruses, mostly done with accomplices. In the end, he died in a gun battle in front of a crowd of 500 people on the Juneau Co. wharf, shot allegedly by Frank Reid, a town surveyor. The story goes that Soapy died from a single gunshot wound to the heart, and Frank died 12 days later from a gunshot to the leg, though he died a hero for restoring the town’s honor. Oddly, on our tour later in the day, our ranger tour guide mentioned that an autopsy of Soapy showed he sustained a whole bunch of gunshots of different calibers from different guns. She said there are many theories about what actually took place, though, and history will probably never know the whole truth. 

We ate lunch down near the dock at the Skagway Fish Company, a lively place at lunchtime between the ships and the town. The food was very good, the service was awesome. After a tasty lunch of salmon burgers, we joined the ranger guided tour at the visitor center. We learned a lot about the Klondike Gold Rush and the area around Skagway.

Moore Homestead

In 1887 Tlingit packer, “Skookum Jim”, and Capt. William Moore set out to survey a new pass through the Skaguay River valley, later called White Pass. On August 17, 1896, gold was discovered by Skookum Jim and two others in a tributary of the Klondike River some 600 miles away from Skagway. The news of the discovery reached Seattle and San Francisco in the coming months, amplified by the press, which set off the Klondike Gold Rush. At the end of July 1897, Capt. Moore saw the first boats stuffed with gold seekers pulling into the harbor.

Original Moore Cabin, first home in Skagway

By the end of the rush in the summer of 1900, over 100,000 stampeders had passed through Skaguay River Valley to begin their trek toward the gold in Dawson City. The first 33 miles of their route was over some of the toughest, snowiest, hardest terrain around and most didn’t make it. They were required, by Canadian Mounties trying to ensure these stampeders wouldn’t die by the hundreds in the harsh conditions, to pack in over 2,000 pounds of provisions per person, most of it food. Some lost all their money to Soapy Smith and his gang just after landing in Skagway, others simply didn’t have the means to hire native men to pack their goods over the route. In any case, about 30,000 people managed to complete the trek from Skagway to Lake Bennett and the headwaters of the Yukon River, by either the White Pass (very dangerous) or the Chilkoot Trail (very steep).

Exhibit of Mascot Saloon during Gold Rush

The White Pass Trail was 10 miles longer, but 600 feet lower, than the Chilkoot Trail. Billed falsely as an “all-weather” option, the trail's first few miles were wide enough to accommodate wagons but quickly narrowed to only 2 feet wide. Its sharp rocks, boulder fields and deep muddy bogs proved to be too difficult for the stampeders’ favored pack animal, the horse. Over 3,000 horses died there in the winter of 1897-1898, earning the trail the nickname ‘Dead Horse Gulch’.

"Golden Staircase" on the Chilkoot Pass
(historic picture, ca. 1898)

The Chilkoot Trail out of the nearby town of Dyea was not much better. This 33 mile trek culminated in the Golden Staircase, a quarter-mile climb to gain 1,000 feet in altitude. And with the requirement to pack a ton of food per person (a year’s supply), most scaled the stairs 20 to 40 times over 3 months to shuttle their supplies forward. On April 3, 1898 an avalanche on this climb claimed the lives of over 100 naïve goldseekers who ignored the advice of the native Tlingits who knew it was imminent.

The choice between the White Pass Trail and the Chilkoot Trail was described by one stampeder, “One was hell; the other, damnation.” Once they cleared this hurdle, they still had a whopping 550 miles to go before they reached the gold fields in Dawson City. The ones that made it there soon discovered they were two years too late…most of the gold fields had already been claimed. Either they toiled in other men's gold mines or they sold their gear and supplies for a ticket home. Some stayed and eventually opened businesses of their own to profit from the gold seekers.

Klondike Gold Rush Museum

The tour about the town’s history during the gold rush was fascinating. At their peak, Skagway and Dyea boasted a floating population of between 8,000 and 10,000 people each, with businesses of both high standing and ill repute established to serve them all. By 1900 the population of Skagway had dropped to 3,711 and Dyea had been all but abandoned. Today Skagway is home to only 920 residents, but it hosts over a million tourists each summer season. Dyea’s once thriving town is now only a few scattered ruins. The rest of what used to be the town has been taken over by nature in the 110 years or so since its last residents left.

Kirme's Curios and Antiques

By the end of the tour, the calm sunny weather we’d been experiencing changed quickly to dark skies and an angry wind. Apparently, the name Skagway in its original Tlingit language means “windy place”, so at least we got to see why it was named that, even if only for a half hour or so. The wind blew and the rain started and within a short bit of time, it was over. Most of the tourists had fled back to the boats while we ducked into a bar for a brew. By the time we finished our beers, the sun was back out and the wind was all but gone.

We strolled around the streets, again virtually alone like the evening before, and we walked back to the RV for dinner. After dinner, we completed the first half of the Skagway Walking Tour, a wonderful self-guided tour of the historic buildings in town.

We reached the docks again around 9pm, just in time to watch the last of the four cruise ships pull out of the harbor in complete sunshine, of course. Ha!