Day 4 : Skagway Alaska .

 We left Juneau about 10 pm on the third night and sailed overnight to Skagway Alaska.  Skagway is the consummate tourist town.

This is our ship at the end of the street and there were three more docked here as well.

Skagway is at the end of a fjord that for some unfathomable reason is called a canal. The first day we were there, there were 15,000 extra people from the ships all over town.

As the day progressed ships left one at a time until only one, our ship was left. It wasn't really our ship anymore because we had  disembarked and were now starting the next phase of the trip by train and then tour bus.

With only one ship in port it almost looked uncrowded.

Of course our rooms weren't ready so the tour people arranged a tour for us around town until they were.  Yep, of course we didn't ride in this one.

Rather we took a regular bus and wandered for a couple of hours.  We visited the cemetery. :(  Is there anything more... kitsch...that a big rock painted gold pretending to be a gold nugget.

Where we saw the continuously refurbished graves of some of the more "famous" characters from Skagway many who had died climbing the pass to get to the Yukon and Gold. 

I looked around at the base of the trees to see if any remains had been pushed up by the roots, but alas there were no juju bones to be found.  I did however find a large black feather from a raven.  I put it in my day pack for later use.

We also got to  drive by the White Pass & Yukon Railroad yards.  This has been on my list of places to see for a very long time.

One of these old engines, might be one in the shop that's operational, sat out in back of the Enid School for years and years until it was purchased by the Fort Worth and Western Railroad, and then by the WP & YR.

Now this is not a picture of a live bear.

Rather it is the back of the tour bus that arrived, and would be meeting us at the end of the rail line to take us on to Dawson.

OK, another bear.  Did I mentioned we went shopping?

After a nap, we walked down to the small boat docks to find a seafood restaurant that served up local beer and daily catch.

Beer battered deep fried halibut and clam chowder, and I forced myself to eat every drop and crumb.  As a bonus we got to watch our ship leave without us.

So we stumbled back up the hill to our Westmark Hotel of interesting configuration. Tomorrow we ride the famous WP & YR up this river and into Canada.