Gold Rushes   The people who rushed to find gold in California in 1849 were called Forty-Niners. Those who rushed to the Yukon in 1898 were called stampeders or Klondikers, and I prefer the latter name.

It never ceases to amaze me how knowledge of one language, usually one’s native language, is enhanced by looking over the garden fence into the neighbor’s language. Here is a case in point. It would seem that the word “rush” in the phrase “gold rush” has to do with hurrying, and I’m sure that’s the case. But now I believe that’s only partially the case.

While researching the White Pass & Yukon Railroad online, I was pleased to come across a German website dealing with it. The German author of the website had visited the area (apparently it’s popular with Germans), had assembled his photos and historical information, and had presented his website on the WP&YRR for a German-speaking audience. I mention this to indicate that this subject is not just of local interest.

As I reviewed this website, which included the word “Goldrausch” I had an epiphany. “Rausch” in German has absolutely nothing to do with hurrying. It describes the confused dizziness that comes from something exciting. Working backwards, I realized that “rush” can mean the same thing in English, such as when something exciting “gives you a rush”. So now I see that “gold rush” can imply both hurriedness and excitement. It also seems related that when you say that blood rushes to your head, that too implies both speed and dizziness.

Skagway & Klondikers   The plane out of New York stopped in Detroit, but then overflew Canada to Anchorage in South-Central Alaska, where I changed for a connection backtracking to Juneau in Southeast Alaska, where I would take the ferry to Skagway the next day. I have found that, rather than referring to this coastal area as the panhandle, local usage is quite consistently “Southeast Alaska”.

Knowing that I would be returning from Alaska via the frequently-used Seattle connection, I was glad I would be going via Anchorage, if, for nothing else, to make it a circular trip. Only once on the plane did I realize how lucky and serendipitous it was.

The weather was perfect, and even as early as right out of Detroit, the Captain announced that we would be seeing sights toward the end of the flight. And did we ever. Actually, I later found out that the summer had been very rainy, and this arrival coincided, very fortunately, with a stretch of good weather for the long weekend I was in Alaska.

I knew I would be aware, and I was aware, as we came up through Canada, that the difficult overland trip on the ground below us was one of the three choices open to the Klondikers, and was where the Alaska Highway had later been built. As we were overflying the Yukon area (he mentioned Whitehorse, but I didn’t see it; no matter) he actually pointed out the Alaska Highway (1422 miles/2288 kilometers). It was a clear white ribbon coming up towards us at an angle from the southeast through the green forests in an extremely mountainous setting. I couldn’t be happer (until a few minutes later, in Alaska).

We were overflying nothing but snow-capped mountains, with the occasional lake, and then came the glaciers. I had only seen glaciers from the ground, looking at the lower end of the river of ice, sometimes on land (in Switzerland, but also the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau in 1970) and sometimes from a boat in the water (Glacier Bay, also in 1970) as chunks of ice would calve off into the water. Looking at some smaller ones from the air, and also some huge ones from above, made it clear how sensible it was to call them rivers of ice. We saw Mt Saint Elias (18,000 feet) which lies right at the junction of Central and Southeast Alaska, preventing any direct road connection other than through Canada; near it was Mount Logan, at almost 20,000 feet, the highest point in Canada. I have said that flying was usually humdrum, and that, if you’ve flown a few times, you rarely see anything new from the air, but this was certainly quite different.

In 1970, Beverly and I took the Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks to Anchorage, with an overnight stop at the lodge in Denali (Mt McKinley) National Park. We had heard that 70% of the time the mountain is socked in by clouds and you don’t get to see it. We didn’t get to see it. Now, as we were coming closer to Anchorage, the Captain said that, with the clear weather we were having, if you look in the distance, that’s Mt McKinley. It really was impressive, rising higher than any of the mountains around it. I had come back to Alaska after 35 years to see two things we’d missed, but didn’t expect to see Denali as well. It was a distant view, as opposed to the closer view you would get when in the Park, but nevertheless was a fulfilling moment, and all the better because it was unexpected.

I stopped in Juneau (Alaska’s capital, but with just 30,000 people) just to make the ferry connection, but one story comes to mind from our first trip. We had taken a city bus out of Juneau to see the Mendenhall Glacier on the outskirts of town. Afterwards, we were waiting at the roadside bus stop for the bus back, but there was none in sight, nor any taxis. We decided to try something we rarely did (actually, I think never, outside this time). We hitchhiked. After a few moments a lady picked us up, and we had a pleasant chat for the 10-15 minutes back into town. During our conversation, she told us she was the wife of the mayor of Juneau. I like this story because it seems so quintessentially small-town Alaskan.

Back to the present. The ferry system run by the state, the Alaska Marine Highway System, is an excellent way to make connections from Washington State and lower British Columbia through the Inside Passage, and even up to, and around, Central Alaska. From Juneau I took the MV Fairweather, which is a very comfortable, modern hydrofoil and makes the trip to Skagway in only 2 ½ hours. There was a naturalist onboard who pointed out glaciers up the side valleys and other sights. The northernmost arm of the Inside Passage, which starts shortly out of Juneau, is the Lynn Canal. I was surprised to find out it was explored by George Vancouver in 1794. I didn’t know he had come this far north. The name Lynn Canal is a misnomer, since it’s a fjord, some 60 miles long and up to 1600 feet deep. It’s the longest fjord in North America. The name is also misleading. One assumes it’s a woman’s name. Once I knew Vancouver named it, I assumed it could have been a relative. Vancouver did give it a name connected to himself. He named it after his birthplace, King’s Lynn in England. The only thing is, you have to be careful in naming something like that, since no one will easily see the dedication. Perhaps he should have named it King’s Lynn Canal.

[Another local example of names that are misleading dedications: when you hear that the mountain pass above Skagway is the White Pass, you automatically conjure up a romantic picture of the snows of winter covering the pass and giving it that name. Not at all. The pass was named for the Canadian Minister of the Interior in gold rush times, Sir Thomas White. There may or may not have been political reasons at the time to name it that way, but with the passage of time, the point of the dedication is totally lost. Instead of a government official, one pictures a snowdrift.]

I got some interesting information from the naturalist that was new for me. I have known that the rubble and boulders at the front of a glacier is a moraine. I grew up at the foot of the moraine left by the ice cap when it came down as far as Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. As a child I was taken to Highland Park, which lies on a slope coming down the moraine. But I now know that’s a terminal moraine, one of sevral types. There are also lateral moraines coming down the sides of a glacier, and most interestingly, a medial moraine. This is when two glaciers coming down neighboring valleys merge to form a single glacier, and their adjoining lateral moraines are suddenly next to each other in the center of the combined glacier. We could see some of these from the ferry, but I thought back to the evening before when I wondered why some huge glaciers seen from above looked like the had what seemed like, but couldn’t be, paved highways coming down their center.

The Lynn Canal has two towns of interest on it, and one former town of interest. On the west side coming up the fjord is Haines, noted because it has one of the few highway connections to the outside. The road up from Haines joins the Alaska Highway well west of Whitehorse, and therefore is closer to Central Alaska.

At the northern end of the Lynn Canal is Skagway on the right, and around a point of land and a bit further, Dyea (dye-YEE). Haines has a population of 2500. Although Skagway’s population swells in the summer, its year-round population is only 862. The population of Dyea is 0. And thereby hangs another tale.

First, a thought. It’s startling to realize how much Alaska (and the Yukon) owes to gold. Juneau had had a gold strike a decade or two earlier; that’s the reason it was eventually made the capital instead of Sitka. After the Klondike petered down, Nome had a strike, then Fairbanks. It seems that most of Alaskan cities might not be there if not for gold. But what made the Klondike different? It was an amazing coinciding of economic need and outstanding PR.

The Panic of 1893 had resulted in a depression during the 1890’s that was second only to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. There was a great number of people in particularly desperate financial straits, which hadn’t been the case with the earlier Juneau strike.

Gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek off the Klondike River, a tributary of the Yukon River, in 1896. Communications in the North then not being what they are today, no one outside knew about it. Finally, the steamer Portland, coming back from the North, arrived in Seattle, and some lucky prospectors offloaded their stash of gold. It was reported immediately on July 17, 1897 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer under the headline:

Pictures of this front page can be seen today in Skagway, including in a mural on the wall of the ferry terminal, from which I copied it while waiting for a ferry. The word spread immediatly around the world. In no time, half the streetcar conductors in San Francisco quit to go north, as did the mayor of Seattle himself. This is what I mean by great PR due to extensive coverage. 100,000 people at least started out to go north, although many turned back at various stages. Barges filled with hopefuls arrived in Skagway and Dyea every hour, day and night. A number of women arrived, too, dressed in the long Victorian dresses of the day, yet ready for the Chilkoot Pass. Some even made it.

I’ve mentioned the three routes north, but fully 90% of those going north got on a ship that went up the Inside Passage of Alaska, up the Lynn Canal, and got off at the end of one of two valleys, in one of which developed Dyea and in the other of which was already the tiny settlement of Skagway.

If you proceeded up the valley from Dyea, you got on the Chilkoot Trail leading to Chilkoot Pass over the Coast Mountains. Coming up from Skagway was still unproven White Pass Trail over the White Pass. Once over the mountains, the trails merged a little further along at Lake Bennett. Summit Lake in White Pass, flowing into other lakes including Bennett, forms the headwaters of the Yukon River.

White Pass is 888 meters/2914 feet high. Although Chilkoot Pass is 183 meters/600 feet higher, and is much steeper, at one point sloping 35 degrees, it is shorter, and reaches Lake Bennett more quickly.

Although this already seems daunting, there was another development. There had almost been a famine in Dawson City in the winter of 1896-7, so the Canadian authorities put new restrictions on all later arrivals. They had to carry in with them enough supplies to last them one year. This became known as the “one ton” requirement, since that is about what one year’s worth of supplies would weigh. Therefore, everyone would have to make multiple trips. Depending on if you carried 50- to 80-pound loads, you would have to go up one of the trails between 30 and 40 times. Your stash on top was watched by the Mounties until you were ready to proceed. People would end up walking 1000 miles to cover the 54 kilometers/33 miles to Lake Bennett. In the National Historic Park visitor center in Skagway was a model of someone who had finally filled his sled at the top with his supplies. A long list of recommended supplies was also shown, listing food, shovels, tents, and so on. It starts: 150 pounds of bacon, 400 pounds of flour, ....”

Some people felt it would be easier to use horses and other pack animals, which were readily available in town (everything was). They would load a horse with 400 pounds and plan on five trips. Some people knew how to handle horses; most didn’t. About 3000 horses died on the trails. On section of the White Pass Trail is called Dead Horse Gulch. The fallen horses would just be trampled by the flow behind them. Finally, the White Pass Trail was closed later in 1897, and everyone went back to the Chilkoot.

The top of the Chilkoot was the steepest part. In summer this part was a field of boulders. In winter, steps were cut out in the ice. These were called the “Golden Stairs”. The most famous photographs of the entire era, often reproduced in paintings as well, show hundreds of black dots going up an endless white slope, on, and on, and on. It’s referred to as a stream of climbing humanity. By the winter of 1897-8, 20,000 people, each making 30 to 40 trips, crossed the Chilkoot.

It should be noted that the current Alaska license plate is labeled “Gold Rush Centennial”, so it presumably has been out since 1998. Under a strip of blue sky across the top the plate is primarily jagged white mountains with the plate number on them, three digits to the left, three to the right. Under the left three digits starts a line of hikers, which then turns up the center of the plate between the digits to the top of the mountains, all climbing the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail.

Some people brought prefabricated boats with them, but that just added to their load. Most ended up building boats once on top. Of course, this means they had to do it from scratch, cutting trees, making planks, and so on. Some knew how to build boats, most didn’t. When the ice broke and the boats were ready to proceed, some foundered. It was still hundreds of miles to Dawson City. Of course, many gave up and turned around at every stage, even on their first arrival at Skagway or Dyea. Of course, a major irony with all this gold fever is that when they reached the several creeks in the Klondike, all possible locations had already been claimed. With nothing more to be had, most had to go to work for someone else, helping him with his claim instead.

I was startled to be reminded about Jack London and from where he got his material for his stories of the Wild North. Before he was well-known, Jack London sailed at age 21 from San Francisco in 1897 to Dyea, and went over the Chilkoot. He then built two boats with some friends and they made their way to close to the Klondike. The trip so far had taken two months. Then he got sick and decided to return home. He took on a job as a coal stoker on a ship going downstream on the Yukon River via the water route through Alaska and into the Bering Sea, then down to San Francisco. The greatest irony is that he never made a penny in gold, but made a fortune from the novels and short stories he wrote about his adventures in the Yukon.

Considering the circumstances of this thronging of people to the Yukon, plans were promptly drawn for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. It was built in only 27 months in 1898-1900. It was built to three-foot narrow guage, because of the mountainous route. One area of the route, a ledge along a cliff, was so difficult it required most of the blasting that was needed for the whole route. It never could have been done to build a route at standard-guage width for a standard-size train. The whole route is single-tracked, by the way, with an occasional double track for passing.

The railroad reached Lake Bennett and then went on to Whitehorse, where eventually river steamers completed the trip. It had been thought to extend the railroad to Dawson City, but the steamers made that unnecessary, so Whitehorse, as the transfer point, blossomed. The community that had grown at Lake Bennett disappeared almost overnight, since there was no longer a need for the work they were doing there.

Skagway and Dyea became boomtowns. Skagway at this time had a population of 20,000 (again, now 862). Its rival Dyea in 1897-8 had a population of 5-8,000, with 150 businesses, lawyers, banks, suppliers. But by 1903, once the railroad had become the way to go over the mountains instead of hiking over the passes, the population of Dyea was a half-dozen, and eventually the community just disappeared and the forest took over where all the buildings and multiple city streets had been.

The railroad operated successfully from 1900-1982, when ore prices fell and the mining industry in Canada that the railroad depended on collapsed. It reopened in 1988 as a tourist railroad, heavily dependant on cruise ships. In season it runs 2-3 trains a day to the summit of the White Pass, avoiding having to pass Canadian customs. It runs about the first 40 miles, the most spectacular part of its route, of its original 110-mile route to Whitehorse. On occasion (see below) it runs to Lake Bennett, and hopes to eventually reopen to Carcross in the Yukon, which covers a nice lake stretch. The railroad is unique in North America (perhaps beyond) as the only international narrow-guage railroad.

Beverly’s diary says we were in Skagway on June 15, 1970. I remember it looking less than impressive, a bit worse for wear, but now there is a Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. It includes corridors for both the Chilkoot and White Pass Trails, and Skagway now has a historic district, and all the buildings have been spruced up, with their wooden sidewalks and false fronts. Some of the buildings belong to the Park Service, others are private. Of couse, most of them are gift shops, or shops selling jewelry, furs, and everything else. I know that type of commerce is necessary to keep the town going, but I know there are people coming through here who leave with the impression that there were gift shops here, and only gift shops, in the historic period. The old depot is now the headquarters of the Park Service, so the railroad has another building behind it along the tracks as its station. In the old depot you can see the walk-in safe where the railroad stored gold bullion in transshipment to Seattle. The railroad is on Broadway between 1st and 2nd, and the historic district only goes up to 8th at the most. My first evening in Skagway most of the visitors had already cleared away as I walked up and down Broadway in the late afternoon sun. Without the tourists it was easier to black out the gift shops and see the buildings and town in its historic aspect.

Every Saturday in season, the railroad runs a special train, which, after 35 years, is the train I wanted to take. All the regular trains have been diesel for years, but the special train uses a restored steam engine. More important, this train runs all the way to Lake Bennett, with a box lunch included. It’s a full-day excursion, from 8:00 to 4:30, with two hours in Lake Bennett for the box lunch and a tour of the former town. The engine is from the 1940’s, and the coaches are original, although restored. Yes, the train would do its woo-woo whistle every once in a while, and yes, the smoke could be bothersome, but it was a good ride. Along the route were glaciers and waterfalls. At two locations you could spot the original White Pass Trail. It seemed like a moss-covered path of no significant width at all. I don’t know how people did it, and I understand why it was closed. There are two tunnels and a number of overpasses.

Originally, it was thought the railroad couldn’t be built because of the height it had to climb in so short a distance. The usual horseshoe curve solution was used. The route was sent down a side valley, gradually rising, then around the end, then rising again. Picture spreading a paper clip apart to visualize this. This is the most spectacular part. The first stretch is called the low line and then later comes the high line. As you are on one and look up (or down) to the other, you realize how much height you are gaining or losing. We also did two run-bys. Everyone would get out of the train, it would back up, and then people would take pictures of it coming back. Beyond the summit, we passed Canadian customs (US customs was taken care of back at the station on our return) and we crossed the Klondike Highway. After lunch at Lake Bennett, a Canadian Park Ranger walked us through where an entire town had been for 3-4 years, now gone. A lot of the wooden buildings were recycled, others burned. The only building remaining in town was St Andrews Presbyterian Church, which actually served as a community center. It has logs on the outside, but is otherwise in High Victorian Gothic!

The only way to reach Lake Bennett is by this once-weekly seasonal train, or by hiking. Yes, people still hike the Chilkoot Trail. It takes five days from where they’re dropped off at the Dyea town site, and has to be scheduled to coincide with a Saturday pickup by the train, because that’s how the hikers get back to Skagway.

The parlor-car coaches on these trains are all original, although periodically rebuilt. They are of the period where it was customary to have a small platform at the end of each car, covered by a roof. Two opposite platforms between cars, therefore, form a sort of H-shaped outdoor viewing area. When on the platform of the last car, you have a perfect rear view.

A toilet facility was at one end of each car, and opposite it was a coal stove surrounded by a railing, with a chimney going out through the roof. As we left at 8 AM, the stove had been lighted to take off the morning chill.

The next day I rented a car with two destinations in mind, and this day was all as interesting as the railroad day. I first went to Dyea.

Skagway is not quite at the end of the Lynn Canal. You have to drive west out of town and take a dirt road around a spit of land to be able to drive a bit further north along the inlet with large tidal flats to the Dyea townsite.

I learned that the tidal flats are growing due to something called glacial rebound, which is particularly pronounced in this area. During the ice age there was a 4,000-foot glacier covering this area, which compressed the ground beneath it. With the removal in time of the weight of this ice, the ground has been rising. At this point, the rebound has been an incredible ¾ inch a year, which means that the valley floor here is 8 feet higher than it was a century ago. Considering the shallowness of the inlet in the first place, this means that what was the beach the Klondikers landed on and built Dyea next to is now located considerably further inland from the present shore.

Current access is from the far side of the site, so you drive up from Skagway at the 5 o’clock position, looking at the townsite across the river at 3 o’clock. At 1 o’clock you cross the beginning of the Chilkoot Trail leading out of town up the valley. I’ve now seen the beginning of the trail here and yesterday I saw its end at Lake Bennett. Right after crossing the trail you go over a one-lane bridge. At 10 o’clock is the Slide Cemetery, the major visible remnant of the town.

An additional factor in the decline of Dyea is the huge snowslide that hit town on April 3, 1898, which killed a large number of people. When rescuers were recovering bodies from the avalanche, they found some people frozen in running position. Some distant families wanted the bodies returned home, and the rest were buried here. Names are accompanied by places such as Seattle, San Francisco, New York.

Finally, at the 9 o’clock position is the entrance to the townsite. The suggested trail through the woods takes 8/10 mile. In and of itself, the trail is an exhilarating experience through a northern forest. There is little to show that for half a decade 5-8,000 people lived here. When the town declined, people just started recycling the wood and other materials from the buildings. In a sense, they took the town with them.

The map shows West Street, Broadway, Main Street, River Street, crossed by First to Fifth Streets. Without the map, you’d never know it. You could see that the settlers of the town were planning to stay, laying out property lines and naming streets.

There are two intriguing visible remnants to be seen. Near where the map shows First and West Streets are the remnants of a large wooden foundation. This was the Vining and Wilkes Warehouse, where Klondikers stored their “ton of goods” before going up the trail. The warehouse was near the water when it was built.

On Main Street near Fourth (so to speak—it’s all a century-old growth of trees now) there stands the false front of a building. There is no sign, but an explanitory display reproduces a period photograph showing a certain A. M. Gregg Real Estate Office at this site. There are four tree stumps in the ground, which are the remnants of a beautification attempt along Main Street, again showing people were planning to stay. It is ironic that the beautification trees are now stumps, while forest fills everything else around you.

These false wooden fronts with elaborate signs were meant to give a feeling of permanency to what might have been shacks behind them, or even just tents. The Klondikers were in a hurry, and the merchants wanted to try to make a profit before they were gone. Now everything is gone. This “here today, gone tomorrow” is a microcosm of life. It shows transience, but in Dyea, Bennett, even to some extent Skagway, this transience is in fast-forward time.

As you sail up the Lynn Canal, note Haines on the lower west side, visit Skagway on the upper east side, and up at what could have been the end of the line, remember Dyea—shall I call it “Queen of the Fjord”?--population 0.

After Dyea I got on the South Klondike Highway, finished in 1978, and crossed the White Pass again. There were the same great views, this time occasionally including the railroad line across the valley. The irony was not lost of the time it took the Klondikers to climb the trails, compared to the comparative speed the railroad later offered, compared to the even greater speed of crossing on a contemporary highway. To this I could add the flight by charter plane over the White Pass Beverly and I and others were given in 1970 in compensation for the train being on strike.

I stopped where the Canada Customs station services both the rail line and highway, and a train happened to be coming by. Shortly thereafter, I came to the intersection of rail tracks and highway I had seen the day before. At this point the train cuts over to Lake Bennett, which is accessable only by rail. The highway uses a different route, which passes by one beautiful lake after another, most at the foot of huge mountains. After crossing from British Columbia into the Yukon, I came to the only real town on the way, Carcross, which lies on the far side of long Lake Bennett. The rail depot is now used by the tourist bureau, but you can see the route of the tracks along the lake. There are hopes that trains could be brought back at least to Carcross, if not Whitehorse, because of the attractiveness of the route at least to here.

Further on the South Klondike Highway ends at the Alaska Highway, at a point 1404.4 kilometers from where it starts in Dawson Creek, so I finally got to drive on the Alaska Highway, although only about ten miles each way from here into Whitehorse and back. Before Whitehorse, you can drive along Miles Canyon, now flooded because of a hydroelectric dam. The rapids in this canyon had been so severe that the canyon was a major impediment for Klondikers coming down from Lake Bennett headed towards Dawson City. That put Whitehorse at the head of navigation of the Yukon River, and when the railroad decided not to build beyond here to Dawson City, Whitehorse’s future was guaranteed. It now has a population of 19,000, which is 2/3 of the population of the Yukon.

The dam has a fish ladder for chinook salmon. You can see where the pools of water up a trough allow the fish to jump higher and higher until they can clear the dam to go even further upstream. These chinook salmon start their return migration in the Bering Sea and come up the full length of the Yukon River through Alaska and the Yukon, ironically the Klondiker’s “water route”. This 3200 kilometer/2000 mile migration to spawn is the longest known chinook salmon migration in the world.

I wanted to see how the railroad was doing in Whitehorse. Coming into town the tracks were visible, although occasionally covered by blacktop or weeks. In town though, the depot, at a place of pride at the end of Main Street, is being used by other services, and the tracks behind are in tip-top shape.

Whitehorse is about 110 miles north of Skagway. Dawson City is 335 miles further north on the North Klondike Highway, which takes off a short distance out of Whitehorse, but which was much further than I was interested in driving. At its height, Dawson City, right near the Klondike, was the largest city in North America west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle. The gold rush was over by 1904, and it declined further after World War II. The capital was transferred to Whitehorse in 1953 because of its better connections, such as the Alaska Highway. Finally, tourism saved Dawson City from becoming a ghost town. Its present population is 1200.

For much of the 20th century, paddlewheel steamer service continued between Whitehorse and Dawson City. The sternwheelers were owned by the railroad, which also had a monopoly on an overland route for the winter when the river was frozen, so between railroad and steamers, Skagway continued to be connected, via Whitehorse, to Dawson City. The steamers carried ore for transshipment to the railroad, and had luxury cabins for passengers. They burned cord upon cord of wood as fuel. The trip downstream to Dawson City took 40 hours, but such is the current of the Yukon River that the return to Whitehorse took 96. I watched the speed of the river from behind the depot in Whitehorse. Pity the salmon.

The SS Klondike is in permanent drydock in Whitehorse and is a national historic site. It was built in 1937 and served with other sternwheelers on the river. When the ore petered out, they tried running these ships just as cruise ships, but it was too expensive, and service stopped in the 1950’s, so an era was over.

Consider this: the railroad has been revived, at least to the White Pass summit (frequently) and to Lake Bennett weekly. It would like to go on to Carcross. Nowadays, the big cruise lines bring people to Skagway, send them up the railroad, where they are picked up and bused via Whitehorse to Dawson City, then often on to Central Alaska. It would seem to me that since this route has now reached some degree of popularity, and considering that more people are willing to spend money on cruises, a revival of the sternwheelers might seem logical to connect with fully-reconstituted rail service. It would be a memorable trip.

Russo-Alaskan Sitka   I left Skagway for Sitka on my second ferry connection of the trip, on the flagship of the fleet, the MV Columbia. It has fully-appointed, modern, roomy staterooms, including toilet and shower. It has a full dining room (as well as snack bar) and a cocktail lounge. It’s really quite comfortable. I’ve said before that I consider this type of overnight ferry crossing in a stateroom to be as much of a voyage as on any cruise ship or ocean liner. We’ve done Finland-Germany (two nights), Denmark-Norway, Nova Scotia-Newfoundland, and others. Therefore, if my crossing on the QM2 earlier this summer was #33, this trip on the Columbia is voyage #34. On the way down the Lynn Canal, we stopped in Haines, and at midnight, in Juneau. Including stops in each place, the trip from Skagway to Sitka takes about 17 ½ hours.

Sitka is a blend of Russian and native Tlingit (KLINK-it) cultures. The Russians came in 1799 under Alexander Baranof and thrived on the fur trade, primarily sea otters. In 1804 they had a major battle with the Tlingits, who resented the intrusion. There was a period of time when Sitka was the largest city on the west coast of North America, and was referred to as the Paris of the Pacific (just a bit of hyperbole). Even today, Russian influence is apparent in the names of such local islands as Baranof and Chichagof, and the Alexander Archipelago. Even Admiralty Island must have been named by the Russians, considering the importance of the Admiralty Building in Saint Petersburg, and the Russian navy in general. The Russians sold Alaska to the US in 1867. Sitka did become the territorial capital, but that was moved to Juneau in 1906, following its increased importance based on its local gold rush.

We’ve always enjoyed James Michener’s novels because of their historical sweep, including “Hawaii”, “The Source” (Middle East), “The Covenant” (South Africa), “Poland”. When “Chesapeake” came out, after Beverly and I read it, we used a week’s school vacation to drive to all the historic places he mentioned around the Chesapeake Bay, and had our fill of crab cakes. When Michener wrote “Alaska”, he had so much material left over, that shortly after “Journey” came out based on material he hadn’t used in “Alaska”, and dealing more with the Yukon. Considering this, I was pleased to find out that, to research “Alaska”, Michener chose Sitka, where he lived from 1984 to 1986.

During the night, the Columbia left the Inside Passage and sailed around the northern end of Baranof Island, through narrow channels to the western side, since Sitka faces the Pacific. During the morning we went through the narrow Neva Strait and Olga Strait, both names again showing Russian influence. I thought we might have been mistaken years ago about why we didn’t get to see Sitka, but once again I found out that in this area, low tides can affect ferry schedules, and that the ferry terminal indeed, then and now, is seven miles out of town. The only improvement now is that there is a scheduled tour service that will take you around town during the ferry’s three-hour layover, but that didn’t help us then.

The Tlingits called Baranof Island “Shee”, and their community was called “Shee Atika” meaning “people on the outside of Shee”, in other words, not in the interior of the island. After the Russians left, “Shee Atika” was shortened to “Sitka”.

Архангельск/Arkhangel’sk “Archangel” is a city in northern Russia, not far from Finland. In the period in Sitka between the two versions of the Tlingit name, the Russians called the former Tlingit town Ново-Архангельск/Novo-Arkhangel’sk “New Archangel”, so the naming sequence is Shee Atika, Novo-Arkhangel’sk, Sitka.

Sitka is compact, and my almost-a-full-day was enough to see the variety of things I wanted to. I’d always heard of Saint Michael’s cathedral, and was glad to see it. It was the first Russian cathedral in America, dating from 1848. It was destroyed by a disasterous fire in the center of town in 1966, but almost all the icons and items of importance were saved, and the building was rebuilt in 1976. The Lutheran cathedral across the street was founded for the Finnish workers who came as shipbuilders to Novo-Arkhangel’sk; Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia at the time. A nearby remnant of a cemetery had three tombstones in Russian, with the slightly different pre-1917 Cyrillic spelling.

Another highlight was the Russian Bishop’s house. It had been built in 1843 with a school and monk’s quarters downstairs, and the bishop’s quarters upstairs. The National Park Service has restored the building to its original look. The building had been built by Finnish shipbuilders. It was interesting that the jurisdiction of the bishop went west to the Aleutian islands, and southeast—I was delighted to hear--to Fort Ross in California. This building, along with the Fort Ross buildings, are the oldest Russian buildings in America (2001 Series 8). It was a pleasure to connect the entire Russia trip earlier this summer with Sitka now and Fort Ross in 2001.

I was then just in time to see today’s show of the New Archangel Dancers. This is a group of women, all volunteers, all non-professional dancers, none of Russian heritage (most Russians left when American jurisdiction came) who put on Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian, and similar folk dances. In a break they explained that, when the group was being formed in 1969, they invited local men to join as well, but all declined, saying they’re here to hunt and fish, and not to dance. As the troupe put it, they then found that women could dance the men’s parts just as well, thank you very much, and it’s stayed that way since. The original repertoire of four dances is now up to thirty, so each show is somewhat different. In the winter season they go on tour. The costumes were beautiful, the women looked like women, the men looked like—women, but they did a yeoman's job of acrobatic jumps, spins, and tumbles, the “sit-down-and-kick” kazatsky or kazachok, two “men” doing a back-to-back kazatsky with four legs flying. Four of them did a woodchopper’s dance, two with oversized moustaches and two with huge, oversized beards. It all just added to the fun.

I ended my day on the other side of town where the National Park Service has preserved a wooded park area which was the site of the Tlingit fort and battle, but which has also been decorated with reproduction totem poles. It was a pleasant mile’s stroll over evergreen-needle paths through spruce and other northern trees. Frequent benches allowed watching Sitka Sound at low tide. Rounding the bend, the path leads along the Indian River instead, and, thinking I was finished for the day, I found that Alaska had one more surprise for me. Walking along the path I heard some splashing in the river. I thought I saw some debris in the water. On closer inspection, I saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of salmon trying to go up the river to spawn. I asked a woman walking on the path, and she said they were Pink Salmon or Humpies. Later a sign confirmed that Pink Salmon, known locally as Humpback Salmon (Humpies), are the smallest of the Pacific salmon, with mature adults weighing in at 2 kilograms/4 ½ pounds. I said recently you could talk in German about a Lachs swimming upstream, but I didn’t expect to find one myself so quickly. The spectacle was easier to watch standing on a nearby bridge and looking down. Apparently, the fish were sort of in a staging area, because the tide was out, and they couldn’t progress until high tide. Actually, their fins and tails were sticking out of the water. They were all pointed upstream in the low water, and occasionally got on each other’s nerves, with a bit of splashing for a few moments. Salmon apparently live for only a couple of weeks after spawning, and a large number had already died, some on the shore, and some just lying in the water. It was just a surprising final image of nature in Sitka and in Alaska.

GW Travel   While in Sitka I got an e-mail response from GW Travel. You may recall that, as much as I liked the Trans-Siberian private train, I did contact Tim Littler, in charge of GW Travel, to compliment him on the many positive aspects of the train and the trip, but also to give constructive criticism on things I was less happy about. My letter reached him just before he left on a seven-week trip himself, so his response didn’t reach me until I was in Sitka. I found his comments illustrative of the problems as seen from the other side of the fence.

As to tours, he says that since the Trans-Siberian is the longest and most famous railway journey in the world, it has much to offer, but some of the towns in Siberia, to put it as diplomatically as Tim does, are “seriously underwhelming”. [I agree. They may be pleasant enough cities, but many have a repetitive similarity.] The local tour organizers GW Travel has to deal with often have the old Intourist ways of deciding what to see and how to go about seeing it. Even if you want to drop something, it’s hard to do so, since “that’s the route”. We are also virtually the only foreign tourists some of these cities see, and they find it hard to change their ways. Tim also pointed out that GW Travel has to cater to all tastes, and some people are happy to look at places that others wouldn’t be interested in. However, Tim liked my idea of having a “short trip” bus, and is going to look into it; if three buses are going to tour a city, one could just see what is really important, and the others can go to every last nook and cranny.

They are reviewing geting a new Russian-speaking onboard service manager to upgrade the food (especially the desserts) and include local specialties (pelmyeny, golubtsy) as I had suggested.

They are making more improvements on upgrading the trains and will start using the terminology “Gold Class” and “Silver Class”, which I think is excellent naming strategy. However, Tim also liked my suggestion of calling the type of accomodation I was in a drawing room instead of a bedroom, since it was so spacious, and he’s referring the idea to his marketing department.

This was the first time Stanford chartered a train. In their defense, they did want to charter a full train (and will charter two full trains next year) but this one was already partially booked (me and others), which explains the partial charter. In the future, it will be made clear to the passengers on any partial bookings what the situation is as to who is on the train. As I said, it was interesting to gain insights from the perspective of the people running the trip.

Fiftieth Reunion   In Minneapolis there was family visiting to do, and then one evening I wanted to try out the new rail connection. After years ago removing all traces of the excellent trolley services that existed (as happened in other cities), I have over recent visits watched Minneapolis build a new light rail connection, which I was looking forward to trying out. Sleek new cars of the Hiawatha light rail line run twelve miles from a major mall through both parts of the airport, and along a major route to four downtown stops along 5th Street. It was easy to use, fast, and inexpensive. It being surface rail, I suppose I can’t call it a subterraneoferroiterophilic experience, it was just simply ferroiterophilic.

I had read of a new downtown French bistro I wanted to try over on Nicollet and 11th, but walking down Hennepin at 9th I came across a surprise. When Beverly and I first met, she said she was familiar with my last name since there was an Italian restaurant called Cafe di Napoli in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if we ever ate there, but it was always something we identified with because of the name. Cafe di Napoli was just always there. Well now it isn’t. The notice in the window said something like “After 67 years of serving the public ...” On further inquiry I found that it was last year that it had closed. Then I applied a little arithmetic to figure out that Cafe di Napoli, that Beverly in particular had identified with for so long, had opened its doors the year she was born and closed the year she died. This story gets odder. The French bistro I was headed toward is named after its owner-chef. It’s called simply Vincent. So I suppose, from my point of view, lose a little, win a little.

Beverly’s Fiftieth High School Reunion was very enjoyable. There are many friends that we see regularly, and a few that we see only at the five-year reunions. At the dinner, they recognized those that came from out-of-state (13 states), and mentioned in particularly that I was there to represent Beverly. Many people came up to chat about their recollections of her. The most frequent comment was that they remember her always smiling or laughing. I knew that in the school band she played baritone horn, but only now found out that she was lead horn. I knew about some of the jobs she had had while in school, but found out about her very first job. I found out about the medical problems of others, and how they compared with Beverly’s. I’ve known the inner circle of friends for 42 years, and some that we’ve seen only at reunions almost as well, so it wasn’t that I was exactly an outsider; it was more about renewing old ties, all while representing Beverly among her friends and at her reunion, five days before what would have been our 43rd wedding anniversary on August 25.