Skagway

We were delighted with Skagway, and we didn't even get to do all the touristy stuff.

We stepped off the ferry and were happy to see a person from the hostel we'd tried to book. When we tried to book it, we were told they didn't like to take reservations by phone, so we weren't sure they'd have room for us. Lots of us piled into the hostel van, and a few minutes later we arrived at the hostel.

This was the homiest hostel we've been in. The owners were a bit surly at times, but we were treated like family. The hostel is the owners' actual home; they live there, but guests can use all parts of the house. We were delighted to get the one private room for guests and to find out there were a cat and dog living there too, and we enjoyed paying a bit extra to have dinner with the family. But we guests got yelled at for leaving the front door open or getting in the owners' way and were expected to sign up for a chore (as well as pay the usual fee for staying there). Because we took part in the dinner, we (plus a cool woman from Auckland) did all the dishes afterwards. That included all of the dishes the owner used when she made a couple big cakes for her sideline business earlier in the day. Afterwards, the owner had the cheek to insist we sign up for a chore each; I told her we'd already done that when we cleaned her cake dishes! I fled the scene before she could say otherwise. Frankly, the woman scared me. Yep, just like home! :)

We were intrigued by the town. It's only wee but has an interesting history. It started as a goldmining town and currently plays up those origins. The main part of town looks like the old west with lots of wooden storefronts and sidewalks. There's an old timey train and various touristy activities devoted to the olden days of prospecting. We liked just walking around. By day during the summer, literally thousands of people show up on cruise ships and hit the many jewelery and souvenir stores. The sidewalks were packed. I was thrilled to find that some of the stores give out freebies to bring in the punters. I took advantage of this, of course. (I won't divulge here what goodies we got, though, just in case we wind up giving them to people!) By evening, everyone was gone, and we couldn't believe how peaceful it was as we wandered around.



We only had time for one tourist activity, so we chose a long-running show about Soapy Smith, a legendary character in the town's history. Before the show, we got to do some gambling in the old-fashioned casino, with cheap poker chips spray-painted different colours and dealers dressed in old timey clothes...we're talking tight bodices and huge skirts, and that was just on the men! Chris wound up the big winner at blackjack, but another guy at a different table won a few more chips than Chris and took home the prize: a poster signed by the show's cast (and kissed by some of the female cast members). Unfortunately, we then found out that there weren't enough tickets sold for the show to go on that night. They hadn't achieved their minimum of 15 tickets sold! We were really disappointed to miss it.

We needed to move on, but we hope to get back to Skagway someday. We didn't get to make the historic train ride, walk any of the amazing sounding trails in the area, check out the national park visitor centre or visit the local museum. Next time...