Skagway Alaska - September 10, 2001

Skagway (population of 800), a place of many names, much history and little rain, is the northern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway. The town lies in the narrow plain of the Skagway River at the head of the Lynn Canal and, at one time or another, has been called Skaguay, Shkagway, and Gateway to the Golden Interior. It is known as the Home of the North Wind, and residents tell visitors that it blows so much here you will never breathe the same air twice. Skagway was known to thousands of hopeful gold rushers as the gateway to the gold fields. Although it boasted the shortest route to the Klondike, it was far from being the easiest. Over a hundred years ago, the White Pass route through the Coast Mountains and the shorter, but steeper, Chilkoot Trail were used by countless stampeders. The treacherous Chilkoot Trail, combined with the area's cruel elements, left scores dead. The gold rush was a boon to Skagway - by 1898 it was Alaska's largest town with a population of about 20,000. The town's hotels, saloons, dance halls and gambling houses prospered, drawing Skagway residents as well as the 10,000 people living in the tent city of nearby Dyea. But when the gold yield dwindled in 1900, so did the population of Skagway as the miners quickly shifted to new finds in Nome. Skagway retains the flavor of the gold rush era, especially on Broadway, with its false-front buildings, and in the Trail of '98 Museum, with its outstanding collection of memorabilia.