As the cruise goes we get earlier every day getting off the ship to meet up on our tour… something wrong with that scenario… but yesterday it was 9am… not bad… to day it was 8am… that is ok but it gets worse as we go… anyway getting off the ship we see the train tour … they meet the ship at the pier… we should of done the train… first anyway but the tour we took was great… history about the women of Skagway… both good and bad..
And here come our tour guides…
We had a bus take us to the other end of town… and started our walk back down the alleys (Paradise, French and Jap-according to a book search I found here )and back streets and places you see but have no clue about… well now we know that they were for, where and how..
Of course it had to start with a story about how Skagway began and it isn’t all that old… 1897…
The town is so cool because they have held the original setting, architecture, etc.… most of the building are original or required to look that way… although as you can see they have their own Harley store… but didn’t see any bikes? They do have all boardwalks along both sides of the street.
As the story went the town fathers … or those of “high class” didn’t like the Amsterdam method… of advertising the service in the window… so they required curtains be put in place… well of course the working women figured out how to make that work out for them… it has a curtain like the ordinance required… and this building was an original Crib… about a 10 x 10 building for the purpose of …. business.
As we move through town the guide on the right, explained all sorts of things but at this point we were about to move to the lady that made money by selling pies to the miners for $10 each… and made enough to build a mansion. unfortunately it burned down and all that was left was the chimney… in the trees to the left. Interesting fact is that since they had electricity so early they had very few fires so that is why so many old buildings are still in place..
Since they are focused on the past these are ladies cribs that have been donated back to the historic need and put in one of the alleys…
We also got some explanation that since housing is limited this is the housing for tour guides… bunk style beds with shared bathrooms… pretty limited facilities…
The tour ended at the most famous of the houses… it had originally been near the other end of town but when the train came they wanted it close to the train so moved the whole building… but got it in backwards so just cut off the front and back an swapped them… so the Madame’s room was in front and usually should have been in the back… we did get a tour of the upstairs “working girls rooms’… This house was also ran by the famous Diamond Lil at one point before she moved up to Dawson… (more on Diamond Lil)
The upstairs collection is so that it kept some of the wallpaper that they had and anything that had been left in the building as well as some more recent paintings… to show the life.
Since the girls were paid in gold nuggets at times they would (at the end of the 15 minute service) drop them down a special copper tube from their room to a capture container the rattle alerted the bar tender to put their room notice back up as “in service”…
The ceiling was where the electric wires went… not really as safe as today but that is how it worked..
In the house was this dress, believed to be one of the Madame’s as it has silver lines in it and weights about 10 lbs.…
This was a replica room… 10 x 10 with a 3/4 twin bed and a few things they might have had…
Interesting down stairs in the bar… they have a collection of bed pans… haven’t seen one of them before…
I think these places were probably the real HOOTERS… way before the current one…
Ok, we finished that tour and headed back up the street to visit the yarn shop and junk stores… luckily we only hit one jewelry store…
Amazing that the first bank and only bank in Skagway still has the counter and teller bars… fun stuff… and is in the original building.
Yep, had to hit the yarn shop… saw it on the tour and it was a prime spot to stop… and she got some yarn…
We took in the small museum there and several other things the park service had along the way… there is a huge park service operations here…
Being noon, a long way back to the ship and a rain storm coming we ducked into the Sweet tooth café and had sandwiches… not a bad burger… not great…
But there was a warning sign so I wasn’t expecting a gourmet meal…
Since it snows so damn much up here and they had the train to White horse in they had this to remove the snow… huge snow blower…
From there we walked back to the ship… and crashed… we had put in several miles in the up and back and up and back tour… We needed a nap before the dinner and show…
WD0AJG