BhidePhotography: Skagway, Gateway to the Klondike

We disembarked from the Volendam in Skagway, to begin the inland portion of our journey. In Skagway, our history lesson on the Klondike gold rush of 1898 began. The Klondike was Skagway's reason for being. It was the gateway to the Gold of The Yukon Territory. Ships full of gold-seekers left Seattle arrived in droves after the news of the Klondike finds were announced to the world. There were other routes to the Klondike, but they were either more difficult or more expensive. Skagway and nearby Dyea (pr. Di-EE) were the popular routes. From Dyea one could take the Chilkoot Trail 40 miles overland on foot to Lake Bennet, build a boat, and then float down the Yukon to the goldfields near Dawson in The Yukon Territory of Canada.

The distance from Skagway to Lake Bennet was the same, but the route was over the White Pass trail, a slightly longer but less steep route than the Chilkoot. Being further up the Lynn Canal than Skagway, at the end of the Taiya Inlet, Dyea couldn't accommodate as many incoming ships as its twin down in Skagway and never did become as large. Within a year, the White Pass Railroad had been completed and Dyea was abandoned altogether. All that remains today are some post stumps in the boggy ground and scattered bits of wood that were once houses and stores.

Meanwhile, Skagway's population exploded almost overnight as tens of thousands streamed into the narrow, muddy strip of flat ground that Capt. William "Billy" Moore had claimed and laid out as a town a few years earlier. Skagway quickly became known for its graft, corruption, gunfights, numerous houses of prostitution and just general lawlessness. Goldseekers jumped all over Billy Moore's would-be township and decided to declare his claims to the land as void. Years later, Capt. Smith won it back in a court battle.

The practice of 'mining the miners' became a major industry in Skagway that first year and the leader of that industry was a man by the name of Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith. Soapy Smith was a businessman in the loosest sense of the world; a "snake oil salesman" of the wild west. Among his many ventures was a small telegraph office where he'd happily -- for a price -- take down messages from arriving miners so they could let their loved ones back home know they'd landed safely in Alaska. The telegraph key operator could be seen diligently tapping away to get the messages out right away. The only trouble was that the telegraph line starting at the office led directly to the bottom of the bay. There were no outgoing lines from Skagway.

Vigilantes, determined to rid the town of one Soapy Smith, formed a committee and, when Smith forced his way into a meeting, a gunfight quickly broke out. Smith was shot dead by a man by the name of Frank Reid. Reid was severely wounded by a bullet to the groin and died a few days later. Both men were buried in the cemetery just outside of town, but Smith's body went into ground just outside the cemetery proper, while the townsfolk all pitched in to bury Frank Reid and erect a tall monument over the site.

The story only starts in Skagway, but for now it's time to walk around the town built in a summer and kept alive by history and tourism.

I suppose you could get to Jamaica from here. . . . .

Street Scenes:

Okay, I suppose I should get out of the middle of the road. . . .
The bottom line is a little hard to read. It says "Skagway Paramedics". A little tongue-in-cheek.
Notice that the following pictures are not taken from the middle of the street; I won't tell you where I was standing for the ones above so that I don't incriminate myself. . . .