It's hard to imagine getting cabin fever on a boat with 2500 other people, but after 2+ days at sea, I think we were both ready to get back on dry land and do some exploring. Our first port of call was the gold rush town of Skagway. We booked a rental car with Avis, so our intent was to drive up the Klondike Highway into the Yukon Territory and see what we can see. Because we didn't want to waste any time, we had room service bring us some bacon, egg and cheese muffins. They were not very good since the eggs were runny, but they came on time.
When we opened the shades and went out onto the balcony, we were greeted with cool humid air and low clouds; perfect Alaska weather. There were 2 other ships that I could see (turns out there were 4 total in port today). We hustled down to the Avis “office” to find a line out the door. I'm not sure why, but the actual act of renting a car seems to take forever.
We didn't actually get in our car until after 9, and promptly set out on the only road out of town. It wasn't too long before we crested the White Pass and entered into Canada. At every pullout was a tour bus or tour van so we elected to just keep going and take our chances that the weather would be OK on our way back. Once over the pass, the weather took a turn for the better and it just got sunnier and sunnier. We did manage to see the WP&YR train across the valley as we headed north. It's interesting to note that the actual US/Canada border is at the top of the pass, but the border crossing stations are down the hill on each side of the pass.
When we got to Fraser, where the Canadian crossing is, the landscape changed dramatically to something otherworldly. There was lots of exposed rock with small scrub fir trees and small (and not so small) pools of water. The valley we were in was clearly formed by glaciers, so the rock must have been so hard and dense that it has taken quite some time for plants and trees to sprout. There was quite a bit of snow here still; enough so that some of the snow made for white “beaches” at the shores of some of the small pools. We kept driving past a small town called “Caribou Crossing” (Carcross for short) to a small lake called “Emerald Lake” that is unremarkable save for the beautiful color of the water.
Carcross is a very small town that seems notable really only for having a railroad bridge across a river and for having the world's smallest desert. The sand dunes looked completely out of place in this alpine environment, but they certainly were interesting. We did stop in Carcross for an excellent lunch at a small hamburger stand (Eddy's Checkpoint) and Angela got a pretty pair of earrings from Tanya Kennedy at "Motherlode Jewellery" (love how the Canadians spell "jewelry") next door who makes them by hand from locally mined or collected gemstones. Whatever ambiance the town might have had was destroyed by all of the bulldozers and graders and other heavy equipment working on a pretty massive road improvement project. Everyone we talked to in Carcross was sick and tired of them and couldn't wait until they left. I sure hope that the cruise lines aren't trying to turn Carcross into another completely artificial excursion destination like they've already done with Skagway.
Wanting to take advantage of the awesome weather, we asked around about hiking trails in the area. We were directed to one above Tutshi lake on the way back to Skagway. It didn't disappoint and after about 30mins we were treated to a great view of the lake from above. The trail actually followed the track of an old mine “lift” and there were still some remains of the towers and cables that would be used to get the buckets of rocks up and down the mountain.
Since we bypassed all the “cool” pullouts on the way up, we stopped at the big “Welcome to the Yukon” and “Welcome to Alaska” signs on the way back for some pics. There must be a bunch of Atlantans cruising Alaska this week, because we ran into another couple at the big Yukon sign who were from Atlanta.
Before returning the car, we drove up the Dyea road to get a cool view of Skagway from above. There's really nothing there. It's a shame that the cruise lines have perverted this could-be cute town into something completely artificial. There are a couple what appear to be authentic galleries amidst all of the fake jewelry shops and trinket stores but it's tough to separate the wheat from the chaff. We did manage to stumble upon a cemetery for a bunch of miners and other residents that died in a freak avalanche on Palm Sunday in 1898.
We got back on the boat with about 20 minutes to spare after searching out a few locally owned and operated shops.
We had dinner in the dining room again and I had another good meal of baked salmon with a nice tangy and sweet BBQ sauce over basmati rice. The meal tasted good except the fish was overcooked. Angela's was not memorable enough to remember, but she thinks it was lamb.
We have yet to go to the casino or see a show or do anything like that on the ship. In our dinner conversations, we've heard good things about the entertainment, but our wake-ups are early enough and our dinners are late enough that we just go back to the room after dinner.
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