Our second and last port is Skagway at the end of the Inside passage. It has a population of 900, and has 3 streets, each 8 blocks long. It has a history with the Klondike gold rush.

We eat at 6:15 am, then gather the rest of our belongings and go to the theater to meet our tour guide and hear a program on Skagway and the gold rush. The US park service has a park here and a ranger gives us the history of the town beginning with the Gold Rush of 1896. After the presentation we are assigned our group that we will be with for the rest of the trip. Different groups are going to different destinations and each group has their own motor coach. We disembark and ride a bus for a 90 min city and area tour. We go to the lookout overseeing the city, see the gold rush cemetary where the conartist Soapy Smith and his killer, John Reid, the town surveyor, are buried and we do a short 5 min. hike to the lower Reid Water Falls-beautiful! There is no Dr. here and no hospital-all pregnant women must leave at their 9th month, so no babies have been born here since 1983! Also, there is a 20 foot drop in tides every day. We arrive at the Westmark hotel and are free until 7 pm. Gary and I take a park Ranger tour of several historical buildings, hike a very steep path up the mountain to lower Reid Lake, and another short hike to the footbridge crossing Skagway river. We go shopping down Main St to a variety of stores and Gary has a chicken wrap for lunch. I am so full of ship food that I pass. At 7pm the group goes to a small theatre to hear Steve Hites tell about the history in a very animated way and we see a short film. I know all about the Gold Rush where thousands died-humans, and horses- very few got rich-50 out of 50,000 that survived the 1500 mile trip to the Yukon territory amidst terrible conditions and below freezing weather. Out of the 50 who made money only 5 died with any wealth. However, many cities were made such as Seattle and Skagway. Tomorrow we will ride the Yukon rail into Whitehorse-the same path the prospectors took, but on a historic train instead of by foot carrying 1000 lbs of gear. Pizza for dinner!