Skagway and Frazer BC.

Caught a bus up to White Pass from Skagway to BC today. Skagway is this little town in between tall towering mountains. There is a winding road that takes you up to the border of British Columbia. A very nice Canadian border patrol officer boarded the bus and check all of our passports before we got off and boarded the train to do the whitepass rail trip back to Skagway. The round trip took about 2 ½ hours. The railroad runs right on the edge of the mountain and you look down into amazing valleys.


As you get towards the BC border the terrain changes into sub tundra with dwarf conifer trees that stand between 3 and 6 ft high but could be over 100 years old. Then the bright blue of the fresh water rivers run into the amazing green of the glacier lake – where these waters meet the color literally changes with a line running the length of the lake, on one side bright clear blue the other murky glacier green.

Plenty of snow still around (though only in patches). Snow goes right into the river and ponds, and the water is so clear you can see the submerged snow under the edge of the water. I will have to include some photos in this blog as it really was spectacular and the scenery was very different from anything we have encountered in our travels so far.

Skagway itself is a quaint heritage town with a population of 800 and a cruise ship population of 8000 on a peak day! Mainly all tourist shops and jewelery shops, in 100+ year old wooden buildings. We really were unaware of the shopping potential with jewelry that a cruise to alaska provides. We learnt that Alaska specialises in rare ammolite, tanzanite and alexanderite …. ever heard of them? They are all very colorful and different gemstones. Because of the volumes of visitors these stores receive they can offer (apparently) very good prices on these types of jewelery. Ammolite is only found in Alberta Canada, which is nearby (ish). And alexanderite is from russia which, originally owned Alaska and sold it to the USA. Tanzanite is from tanzania – so I have no idea why they have that in Alaska but they specialize in that too.


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