According to The Milepost, Skagway is 90 air miles northwest of Juneau, 108 road miles south of Whitehorse, YT. We need to be back over in Whitehorse within the week, since that’s where our part will be shipped to, so we decided to cut over off the Alaska Highway & come here for a few days.
Skagway owes it’s birth to the Klondike Gold Rush, back in 1897 and grew to a population of about 20,000. By 1899 the stampede of people was all but over, and todays population is a little over 1,000. Today, the White Pass & Yukon Route railway (which connected the town to Whitehorse, YT back in 1900); Cruise Ships & the Alaska State Ferry System brought tourism & business to Skagway. It’s funny because Haines, AK is only 15 miles by water (via ferry), but it’s 359 miles by road, so maybe we can go there, too.
Enough history & geography, let me tell you about our ride here!
We left early this morning, on the road by 5:30 a.m.; knowing we had a longer than normal ride. The weather was a nice, sunny 34. I think because it stays light so late here, the wildlife doesn’t seem to be out so early, but we did see a fox walking down the street with a rabbit hanging out its mouth.
We also saw a couple of porcupines, quite a few black bears, a caribou & a moose! I didn’t get pics of them all, but here’s a few Mr. Charley caught out of his side.
We saw the bear on the side of the road & then before he took off, he stood up to scratch his back on the branches, then took off! LOL!
HaHa… these are just statues but they got our attention!
So far, the road hasn’t really been that bad, mostly paved highway, but today there were a few stretches that had dusty gravel, but that’s better than the wet gravel road we travelled earlier! What a muddy mess when we landed!
This is the view along the way today:
We haven’t seen a cop since forever, so this really caught my attention!
HaHaHa…its a fake
And the closer we got to Alaska, the view changed to this:
Oh! Remember the sign-post forest I told you about at Watson Lake? Well, that place is much bigger than we thought. When we walked up to the store, we passed by & look what I found:
I should’ve known someone would post CLEMSON, and it looks like City of Hialeah Police made it here, too. And, Spartanburg, SC
The last one is from the Loosey Goosey 2014 Group
That’s it for now. I may have “gained another hour” today, but my body is feeling like I “lost” the 4 hours difference from home to here.
Have a good one everybody!
RV Riding is living in different time zones, but keeping on for the sheer enjoyment of seeing what’s around the next turn
How exciting!! Would have loved seeing the black bear scratching against the tree. Thanks for sharing.
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