Skagway, Alaska and Dyea Road

Before hitting downtown Skagway today we took a (short) drive out & over on the Dyea Road. It begins at Milepost S 2.5 on the South Klondike Highway & leads about 8 miles to the old Dyea Townsite (not much there) & then ends at Dyea Flats Recreation Area. The road is a narrow, winding, gravel road beyond Mile 1.4 and the girls were not real happy riding it. Dyea became a ghost town after the gold rush. Its post office closed in 1902, and by 1903 its population consisted of 1 settler. Skagway’s dwindled to 500, but they persisted both as a port & terminus of the White Pass & Yukon Route railway (which we’ll be riding tomorrow).
The Dyea road offers scenic overlooks with a view of Skagway River, Taiya Inlet and Skagway. We got a good view of the ship harbor and town from up there!. The Skyline trail leads to top of the AB Mountain (elev. 5,000 ft). There’s small turnouts along the way with interpretive signs about the Klondike Gold Rush & history. The Chilkoot Trail trailhead, Dyea Campground and Dyea Flats are at the end for most vehicles.  (The road gets REALLY bad, so we turned around).
During the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898-1899, Dyea was the jump-off point to the Klondike gold fields via Chilkoot Pass. Now covered with iris, fireweed and lupine in the summer, little trace remains of Dyea and the buildings that housed up to 8,000 people & 150 businesses, from attorneys to undertakers.
Here’s some pics:

Check out that road!
On the way back around, I think I spotted my first eagle! It was just sitting there across the water & I tried to zoom in as much as I could. Check this out:

It looks like an eagle to me, so I’m counting it! That was all the wildlife we saw.
Here’s the view of Skagway from up there:


The camper is somewhere down there to the left
After that ride, we dropped off  the girls & went downtown to check out the shops. It kind of reminds me of any small  “touristy” town, but the outside of the buildings have been “preserved” to look like the old gold rush town.
The Visitor Center is located inside the Arctic Brotherhood Hall, easily identified by its elaborate driftwood façade:

Check out these other pics:



Look at this! You can take a tour of the Brothel!

The sign says “$10 for 20 minutes just like in 1898” HaHaHa!

Here’s some other pics:

I love the art work on this antler:

 Check out this woodwork:
  


That’s about it for today. Tomorrow we’ll take the White Pass Summit Excursion train ride from Skagway to White Pass.  Hopefully, we’ll be meeting up with some of the Loosey Goosey folks. It should be fun!
Have a good one everybody! 
RV Riding is learning about all kinds of things you never even knew about!