Skagway, AK and Carcross, Yukon Territory Canada

Hi! Sorry I'm a little late with the Skagway post! I got busy with work and I was just too tired.

We were very tired after our Juneau adventure. We had high hopes that Skagway would be less stressful and much more fun. And that is pretty much how things were! Skagway is awesome. The first part of our trip was a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. The railway was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush and still operates today. Here's a link to their website http://www.wpyr.com/history/ . The scenery from the train is gorgeous! Here's a few photos from the train:

That bridge is the 'old' bridge. Our train was on the 'new' bridge. The railway leaves from Skagway and takes you into CANADA! (I had never been to Canada before.) We were lucky enough to see a bear from the train. We only saw him for about 10 seconds, but everyone on the train went nuts! Our train ride ended in British Columbia where our guide for the day picked us up in his bus. This was the view at the end of our ride:

I must say that our day on this tour was fabulous because we had an awesome tour guide. His name was Bruce. He is an artist and a year round resident of Skagway. He is a wonderful storyteller and we enjoyed his tour and his knowledge. Bruce is a unique kind of artist. He carves ivory. I can hear you shout "That's illegal!!! That's animal cruelty!!!" But Bruce carves Mammoth ivory- tusks from animals who roamed the earth thousands of years ago and are now extinct. He gets them from miners who find the tusks while digging for ore. His creations are really beautiful. Check out his website: http://www.aptalaska.net/~schindlr/index.htm Thanks for a great day Bruce!

Bruce drove us further into Canada to the Yukon territory. He was nice enough to take this picture: (and he took pictures for everyone on the bus, which was like 40 people)The road we traveled is sometimes impassable in the winter because of avalanches. I loved that we stopped here. So rebellious! :)
Here's another beautiful photo from a "picture spot".



Bruce took us to a small town called Carcross, named for the large herds of Caribou that cross through that area every Fall. Our tour included lunch at this fun place: (and Yes, it was raining. Again.)

They fed us a hot lunch of barbeque chicken, coleslaw and biscuit. (Canadian cuisine, of course). They had fresh warm donuts for dessert. Yum. Nick was devastated when they ran out!

Seriously though- I saw some lady jamming 6 donuts wrapped in a napkin into her purse. Seriously? We're on a cruise with a 24 HOUR BUFFET, LADY! I THINK YOU'LL MAKE IT BACK TO THE SHIP WITHOUT STARVING! Crazy people.

Our lunch spot had some really cool 'tourist trap' stuff. Here's Nick with the Bison at the taxidermy museum:

Yes, that's right folks! He's picking its nose. Can't you just hear him laughing? And can't you just see the curators of the museum cringing? Such fun!!

There was also dog sled rides and (my personal favorite) PUPPIES! Muddy,wet puppies. And boy, did they know how to work us tourists! Look at these guys:

This guy said: "Gimme the treat, lady, and nobody's pants get muddy." I swear. Ok- he didn't talk. But if he could that's what he'd say.

Rob saw another bear! Scary!

This place offered dog sled rides. I took a quick video of the dogs. They are so strong and all they want to do is run! Check it out:




After lunch we ventured into the small town of Carcross. It took about 5 minutes to tour the town. Its pretty tiny. This was my favorite part:

That's right. Sushi! If your wondering why we didn't have lunch here, this is why: Kinda small. Here's the Carcross Post Office. After our short stop we headed back to the USA. We made a couple stops for pictures. And whatta ya know? Another rainbow!

We made a stop at this neat place so we could photograph these trees. Bruce educated us about coastal tundra. These trees, although small, are anywhere from 5-700 years old. They survive the frigid, snowy winter by getting buried in snow.

This is one of those places where tourists like us stop and stack rocks. Its a way of leaving your mark behind without trashing the ecosystem. Bruce says that, in his experience, there are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who stack the rocks, and those who knock them down. Look what I caught Nick doing:

LOL! We hit the road again. Bruce had a rule that no one can fall asleep on the bus. Look at these rule breakers!!!
We made it back to the ship with little time to spare before all aboard. The rocks along the pier are painted with the symbols of the ships that have docked here over the years. Check this one out:

Such a great day! On our way out of port we were fortunate enough to see 2 humpback whales. They were cruising along, spouting out of their blowholes. It was really cool. I couldn't zoom in enough with my camera to get a good picture, but here is where we saw them.

A little bit further down the fjord, we saw Twin Falls- named so for the split at the bottom.

Lovely! Tomorrow is a day at sea and next stop is Victoria, BC!