Alaska Gold Rush

The urban face of Alaska Gold Rush

Shortly after 7, we take a short walk around the city of Skagway. Unlike Dawson, it has been completely transformed by the shops offering all sorts of luxury goods for tourists (especially silver jewelry, but also fur skins, souvenirs, etc.). Those who are looking for a supermarket are forced to walk down the main street and then ask someone local for help. It is located on a completely secondary street, well hidden from most people's view. In Skagway, jewel shops take priority over supermarkets! Apart from this, the impression we get is not very positive: everything revolves around business, every corner has been artfully modified to sell something, sometimes in a rather obvious way. We believe that this also represents some kind of… disrespect to history and to whom Skagway was experienced under much worse conditions, but the village is a popular summer cruise destination, and large ships bring hordes of hungry American tourists who come to shop. We board the train. that a round trip of three hours takes us to White Pass, historic outpost Following in the footsteps of the Stampeder prospectors, who improvised everything in the last years of the nineteenth century to reach Klondike, a few kilometers further along is the path leading to Chilkoot Pass, the infamous pass whose historical photographs depicting the arduous winter ascent of the prospectors are everywhere. The tracks belong to the first railway, so they run on rails dug into the rock and renovated bridges dating back to the gold rush era. On the train, as soon as we leave the town, we pass by the cemetery where many prospectors and famous bandits are buried.
A small, intriguing stream filled with murky water and literally teeming with salmon.
We met a couple of gentlemen from Whitehorse, who informed us that their city is also enveloped in the fog caused by the fires.
We pick up the car to return to the White Pass and definitively leave Alaska. From here begins the Klondike Hwy., which we have already traveled in its central-northern section, to reach Carcross in Yukon by retracing the old trail followed by gold prospectors, most of whom came from the Lower 48 along the coast by boat to the bustling Skagway before crossing the dangerous Chilkoot Pass, thus arriving in Whitehorse. From there they continued along the Yukon River. This stretch of road offers stunning views of the solitary surrounding landscape. Carcross is a typical western-style village with a truly welcoming visitor center. The employee shows us on the internet a map where the areas of Alaska and Yukon are highlighted in red to indicate wildfires and yellow to indicate only small fires: impressive for the extent. She tells us that the summer has been very rainy; we hadn't noticed this due to the dryness of the land, which is obviously related to intrinsic reasons. In reality, May was quite pleasant, so we fell back into winter fifteen days ago with very warm temperatures. We drive along the Carcross desert, the smallest desert in the world, an old abandoned mine (the Venus Mine)

Excursion to Emerald Lake

and we are literally dazzled by the fantastic colors of the Emerald Lake, a true gem nestled within. We resume the Alaska Highway at Johnson's Crossing and continue a short distance after Teslin, stopping at the excellent Dawson Peaks motel where the manager is incredibly friendly. We have dinner there, enjoying boiled halibut and quickly grilled (with the classic garlic toast), caught in the Lynn Canal just recently. The cabins overlook Lake Teslin, creating a unique and mosquito-filled atmosphere!