Skagway and the White Pass Rail

Today was an EARLY day but well worth it! We rode the historic White Pass all the way up to Carcross Canada. 

I booked this independently because our cruise line only offered the shorter version, and we wanted to see it all!

When I was a kid, I played the computer game “Yukon Trail” so I really wanted to see all of the places in the game.  (I wasn’t great at it, so I usually died in the Yukon River, and I never made it to the end.)

We boarded the train in Skagway, and went up over 2000 feet! It was a COLD morning (45) so it was pretty foggy. The scenery was still beautiful!

We crossed into Canada near Fraser, BC. 

The customs agents boarded the train and checked everyone’s passports, then we were on our way again.

We made a whistle stop at the Bennett ghost town. In the “Yukon Trail” game, you stopped here and had to wait out the winter and built a boat to float Lake Bennett and the Yukon River. That’s what the Stampeders had to do, too. 

In 1898, the Stampeders built a beautiful church that winter. It was also used as a social hall. When they all left in spring of 1899, the church was abandoned. It is still there today.

Our train ended at Carcross, Yukon Territory. We had 45 minutes in town before we got on the bus to head south.

 We made a few short stops on the way down. The first was at Emerald Lake.

Then we crossed back into the USA. We stopped at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign. Unfortunately the beautiful view was covered by the fog,

Finally we ended our ride at downtown Skagway. We did a little shopping and had a few drinks before heading back to the ship. 

Our ship was at the Broadway Dock, which was an easy walk from downtown. 

We also saw a cute Harbor Seal enjoying a salmon. 

It was another really fun day! 

Rainy day in Juneau

We pulled into Juneau around 9, and we were off the ship by 9:30. Weather was intermittent rain all day so we got a lot of use of our rain gear!

Today’s activity was renting a car from Juneau Car Rental (local company) and getting out of town! The SUV was conveniently waiting for us near the pier. 

Our first stop was Eagle Beach State Park that’s 20 miles north of town. We literally had the place to ourselves! We saw a bunch of birds including 2 bald eagles, and a few salmon. The Fireweed here still has plenty of flowers; they were all already gone up in Denali. When the flowers are gone, it will start snowing in about 6 weeks.

After that, we started heading back to town. The next stop was the Shrine of St. Therese. The main parking lot was full, so we took a different road and ended up at “Mary’s View” trail. Again, we had the place to ourselves. There was even a little covered pavilion where we could look out on the bay. The spruce trees have moss on them that’s called “Witches Brew.”

Our next stop was Mendenhall Glacier. We walked on some of the short trails and saw a bunch of salmon spawning. Our land tour guide said we might see bears, but unfortunately we did not. 

The glacier itself was beautiful, although not as impressive as Hubbard Glacier yesterday. Next to it was Nugget Falls. 

Since it was raining steadily at that time, we decided not to walk the 1 mile trail to see the falls and glacier up close. The visitor center was very crowded, but Sean did manage to get his lifetime free National Parks Pass. 

After all of this activity, we started getting hungry, so we went to the main Alaskan Brewing Company tasting room. 

They had a very impressive gift shop, and plenty of beers and seltzers to try. We got a reindeer sausage pizza from a food truck and had a nice lunch. 

I unfortunately managed to lose one of my gloves, so we stopped at a huge Fred Meyer store to get a replacement. The main highway has all of the state flags on light poles, and we spotted the Texas flag!

We drove around downtown and saw the State Capitol and many cute little houses. 

With 5 ships in port today, downtown was packed! 

Our evening activity today is the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. I booked this through the ship simply because it would end so close to our all-aboard time, and the price included transportation. The Salmon Bake was a lot of fun! The area is all under cover for days just like this.

There’s a pretty creek that runs behind the dining area.

It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring Sockeye Salmon cooked over alder wood fire and topped with a maple glaze.

I will admit that I ate three pieces of salmon because it was so good! 

After dinner we walked to the beautiful waterfall at the back of the property. 

Then we headed back to the ship. What a fun day! 

Hubbard Glacier day

Unlike most Caribbean cruises, we only have two true sea days this week. Today was the first one. We ate breakfast in the buffet, and then I played a trivia game and went to an “enrichment lecture.” The speaker was a recently retired Canadian Mountie. She told us the history of the RCMP, and explained the components of her dress uniform which has remained the same for over 200 years. She said it’s ironic that the uniform includes jodhpurs and riding boots with spurs even though she never rode a horse in her 20 years on the job. 

After her lecture, it was time for Hubbard Glacier! The glacier is one of the largest in North America, and it’s over 7 miles wide. Our ship eased into Disenchantment Bay (named by Captain Cook when he was searching for an inside passage), and we got closer and closer!

We finally stopped just a couple hundred yards away! We could hear the “white thunder” and see the beautiful blue stripes in the glacier ice. We saw a few little pieces of ice calve off. Our captain spun the ship slowly around so we got some amazing views.

On our way out of the bay, we passed a lot of “little” icebergs that had the glacier stripes in them.

We also saw harbor seals on the floating ice, and sea lions on a nearby island. 

It was a really amazing day! Tomorrow is our first port day: Juneau!