Skagway – the place where the north wind blows. These days there are 400 or 700 (depending upon who you talk to) permanent residents who live in this lovely little coastal town. This number expands significantly during the peak cruise season when a heap of people from all over the States come into town to work.this is of course consistent with all of the other gorgeous places we have visited.

In the late 1800s it was a different story this was then a bustling town that was central to the gold rush and as a result has a hard and at times tragic history. There are many sad stories of the thousands of Americans and their animals that died trying to make their way to the gold fields.

This was a bleak time in American history when 90% of Americans were desperately poor and with the media hype about finding gold and the idea that this would turn your life around many made the difficult decision to either come alone or bring their families with them to find their fortune.

There were many obstacles including first travelling by sea along the Pacific coast to get to Skagway or Dyea. Then once you arrived you probably needed to payoff the notorious Soapy Smith (what a cute crooks name) who ran the lawless town of Skagway. If you survived that you then travelled 450 miles from Skagway to the goldfields. And you were not simply travelling with your backpack and horse the Canadian government had a requirement that each person had to have food and supplies that would last a year to gain entry to the Yukon. Remembering that there were 100,000 prospectors entered the north western part of Canada between 1896 and 1899 that was a huge number of months to feed. This meant that much person (man, woman or child) carried about 1 ton of materials across this harsh country – in many cases it took people between six and twelve months to arrive. And many died during this time.

Today you can take the train which is what we did, and boy it’s gorgeous and quick about 45 minutes. How different from those people who made this trek over a hundred years ago in most cases just trying to make a better lives for their families.

Some more fun facts about Alaska and Skagway:

• There are no termites in Alaska
• There are no snakes in Alaska
• There is no poison ivy in Alaska
• There are no fish in the Skagway river as there is too much silt

The train stops at a little town in Douglas which is on the Canadian border where only 20 people live and they are mainly Canadian custom workers.

Some shots of this little town it is really quite lovely … remind me to tell you the story of the ever so Mollie Walsh we’ll need time and a stiff drink ..