Day Eight from Whitehorse, Yukon

Today we took a day trip to Skagway, AK.  There's only one way to get there - the Klondike Highway.  The first photo is of one of many lakes along the highway.  Note the reflection of the mountains in the lake, and you can see the White Pass railroad tracks in the lower left.

The population of Skagway is 968.  That number doubles in the summer because there are 900,000 visitors each year.  Many of the visitors come in on the cruise ships.  Today there were four cruise ships in the harbor, so the downtown was really busy.  We went to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Visitor's Center and watched a film about the gold rush. 
There is a famous photo that shows hundreds of prospectors trudging up the snow covered mountains, headed to Dawson (City) in hopes of gold.  That photo is of the Chilkoot Pass in the town of Dyea.  The town no longer esists, but the photo is famous.  The pass the prospectors took out of Skagway is the White Pass.  The gold rush only lasted a couple of years, 1897-1898.  Today Skagway is one of many stops for travelers.

The Red Onion is downtown Skagway.

 On our way back to Whitehorse, we stopped at Carcross (Caribou Crossing) where we visited with a couple from Decorah and a couple from Iowa City.  They were heading back home.

 Only a couple of miles from our RV Park is the Miles Canyon of the Yukon River.  This is upstream from Whitehorse so the steam ships did not have to navigate this narrow canyon.

We had a very enjoyable day.  The weather was great.  It started out the day in the low 50's and in the afternoon it was in the low 70's.  The average high temperature in Skagway in July is 56 F.
It stays light until about 11:30 p.m.,  it never feels like bedtime at 11:00!