After a stop at Juneau, our cruise ship headed further north in the evening, heading to our last port of call during the itinerary, Skagway. This is the port I looked forward to visiting the most, since it bares a legendary tale, and is by far more appealing to me than the other two ports, Ketchikan and Juneau.
【Arriving at Skagway by dawn, the small village lays asleep underneath the mountains.】
【Welcome to Skagway - The cliff next to the port is decorated with the logos of each ship visited in the past.】
【The wall recorded so many that came before us.】At about the end of 19th century, there was this short, but very crazy event known as the Klondike gold rush in history. It lasted for just a few years, but tens of thousands of people left their homes behind, and spent all they had to come all the way from all over the places in US to Yukon (in Canada) for a very slim chance to become filthy rich. One of the popular routes chosen by the prospectors is to sail to Skagway, climb over the mountains, and travel across the icy fields to reach Yukon. Most of these prospectors sailed from Seattle, and thus there is a small museum for the Klondike gold rush in downtown Seattle. During my trip to Seattle in 2009, I visited this museum and saw how the stories of prospectors started, and became very curious about how their stories ended in the north country. And now here I am, at the town Skagway, the happening place of the Klondike gold rush, seeing where the history was made with my own eyes.
在二十一世紀的現代，Skagway 只是個人口不滿千人的小村莊；但在一百多年前，Klondike gold rush 正熱的時候，它可是被淘金客認定是通往富貴之路的大門。然而，富貴險中求，這句話用在當年淘金客的身上實在是再恰當不過。在古早時代，交通不便，加上阿拉斯加嚴寒的冬季，使得淘金客的生活面臨極為嚴峻，以現代的角度來看根本就是不可思議的挑戰。我認為，當年的淘金客，不只是有無比的勇氣，更是在正常生活已經走到了絕路的情形下，才會來到這裡。在當時，所有生活必須的補給品，都要由人或馬背著，帶進 Yukon 地方；加拿大邊境警察的要求是每個人要帶足六個月使用的補給品。當然，這麼多物資，是不可能一趟帶完的，所以所有淘金客，都得在蓋滿冰雪的山坡上不停地來回攀爬，直到六個月的物資都被搬到山上，才能進入加拿大。更難以置信的是，這麼艱鉅聽起來簡直像是極限運動的行程，挑戰的人竟然多到把整條 trail 給排滿了人！Klondike gold rush 的一張經典歷史照片，就是一座大雪山的雪坡上，從山頂到山腳，一個接一個地，站滿了勇往直前的淘金客，多到如果有人離開隊伍休息，那可要在雪坡上等上好幾分鐘，才能找到空隙重新加入隊伍。除了一夕致富的可能性讓人瘋狂之外，我實在是想不到更好的方法來形容這件事了。
At the present day, the town of Skgway is just a small village with population less than 1,000. Flip the calendar back for 100 years, at the heist of Klondike gold rush, Skagway was once considered the gateway towards the land of promise and prosperity, and prospectors flocked into the town by thousands. There is a saying that one seeks great return must bear great risk, and I cannot think of a more suitable application of this line than to the prospectors back then. At the time, means of traffic were primitive, and the bitter cold northern country provided the greatest challenge for the prospectors. From today's view, they were facing something almost impossible, and I think it took not only courage, but desperation towards life otherwise, to pull them over to this place. At the time, to even started the trip to Yukon, each prospector had to carry all supplies with him or on horse back and climb snowy mountains with thousands feet of elevation gain. The requirement by Canadian border patrol was that one has to carry six month of basic supply to cross the border. Therefore, the prospectors had to make multiple trips up and down the snowy slope, just to gather six months worth of supplies to show the border patrol, before he could even start the hundreds of miles journey into Yukon. For something this difficult and almost sounds like extreme sports, it is really surprising to see what happened then in historic photos - One after another, the prospectors lined up to climb the snowy hill, and the flow of people formed a continuous line from the very top of mountain to the bottom. If one stepped away from the line, he had to wait for minutes before there was an empty spot to join again. This was purely craziness. The hope of becoming rich had made so many people flock in with blind courage.
【Skagway, around 1900】
【Skagway, now 2010】
【One historic photo of Klondike gold rush. The black line ascending towards the top of mountain is not a road or a chain. It is a line formed by endless prospectors climbing the snowy hill. They had to make multiple trips to gather six months of supplies before even entering Canada.】Back to the present day, all is now quiet on the small streets of Skagway. The fever for gold has long come and gone, melted away like the snow does each summer. Only a handful of old buildings remain here as the witness of this once fanatic, unbelievable event. Other than welcoming the crowds visiting with cruise ships each day over the summer, Skagway is now basically a remote, quiet village. The Klondike gold rush museum in the first building on the main street remarks the "once upon a time in history" happened here. Most other buildings have been renovated into souvenir shops catering to tourists. This place almost does not feel like a real village, but a theme park about the Klondike gold rush.
【Skagway today - a small town frequently visited by huge cruise ships. The ships look like gigantic monsters looming over the small buildings in town.】
【All these people are tourists from cruise ships. Does this not look like a theme park for old time gold rush?】
【The most "stylish" old hotel in town.】
【The old houses are renovated into shops attracting tourists.】The town of Skagway includes only three streets. Obviously, this is not a place to spend a full day. I am well prepared for this situation and I have booked a rental car with the only Avis in town - we plan to drive along the Klondike highway all the way into Yukon in Canada, to take in the great view in of Canadian wilderness.
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