There are places you visit, and there are places that feel like they've been waiting for you. Skagway is the second kind. Tucked at the northern tip of Alaska's Inside Passage, hemmed in by mountains that rise almost straight out of the sea, this town of fewer than a thousand year-round residents still carries itself like the boomtown it was in 1898, when tens of thousands of gold-fevered stampeders poured off steamships and into the unknown.
The name comes from the Tlingit word Skagua, often translated as "windy place," and the wind does funnel down the valley with real enthusiasm. But what you notice first isn't the weather. It's the way the whole town seems frozen mid-sentence, as if the last prospector just stepped out for a drink and might be back any minute.
Stepping Off the Ship and Into 1898
If you arrive by cruise ship, as most visitors do, the walk from the dock to downtown takes about ten minutes, and it drops you straight onto Broadway. This is the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, and the National Park Service has restored more than twenty buildings along the street to their turn-of-the-century appearance. Wooden boardwalks creak underfoot. False-fronted storefronts painted in deep reds, greens, and golds line both sides. It would feel like a movie set if it weren't so clearly real.
The Arctic Brotherhood Hall is the building everyone stops to photograph, and for good reason. Its entire front is covered in nearly 9,000 pieces of driftwood, nailed up in 1899 by members of a fraternal order for northern pioneers. Today it houses the visitor center, and it remains one of the most photographed buildings in all of Alaska.
A few doors down sits the Red Onion Saloon, which opened in 1898 as a bar on the ground floor and a brothel upstairs. The bar still pours drinks, the servers still wear period costumes, and you can take a tongue-in-cheek tour of the upstairs "cribs" where the working women once lived. It's bawdy and fun and surprisingly informative about the real lives of the people who kept a lawless town running.
The Journey That Defines Skagway: Riding the White Pass & Yukon Route
And then there's the train.
The White Pass & Yukon Route railroad is the reason many people come to Skagway at all, and it earns every bit of its reputation. Construction began in May 1898, at the height of the gold rush, when the only ways over the mountains to the Klondike were the brutal Chilkoot Trail or the deadly White Pass trail, where so many pack animals died that one stretch is still called Dead Horse Gulch. Tens of thousands of workers blasted a three-foot narrow-gauge line through solid granite, reaching the 2,865-foot summit in February 1899 and the town of Whitehorse by the summer of 1900. By the time it was finished, the gold rush was essentially over. The railroad outlasted the reason it was built, which is somehow very Alaskan.
In 1994 it was designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, placing it alongside the Panama Canal and the Eiffel Tower. Once you've ridden it, that comparison feels less grandiose than you'd think.
We boarded one of the vintage parlor cars on a cool, bright morning. The cars are wood-paneled, warmed by small stoves, with big windows and open-air platforms at each end for anyone willing to brave the chill for a better shot. The train eased out of the depot, crossed the Skagway River, and almost immediately began to climb. From sea level to the summit is roughly 20 miles, and the grade reaches nearly four percent in places, which is steep for any railroad and startling for one built by hand more than 125 years ago.
The valley narrowed. Waterfalls began appearing everywhere, threading down the cliffs on both sides. Bridal Veil Falls spills down the far wall in a series of white ribbons, fed by the glaciers above. Then came Glacier Gorge, where the train hugs a shelf blasted into the mountainside and you look down, very far down, at the river churning through the rocks.
Near the top, the train passes Tunnel Mountain and the dramatic view of the old steel cantilever bridge, built in 1901 and once the tallest of its kind in the world. It was retired in 1969 when a new tunnel and bridge were built, but it still spans the gorge, rusting elegantly, a monument to the sheer nerve of the people who built this line.
Then we were at White Pass Summit. The trees thin out and vanish, replaced by bare rock, alpine lakes, and patches of snow that linger well into summer. American and Canadian flags mark the international border. The train pauses, the engine runs around to the other end, and everyone switches to the opposite side of the car so both sides get the window view on the way down. It's a nice bit of democratic etiquette that the crew enforces with cheerful firmness.
The descent is somehow just as thrilling. Knowing what's coming lets you look for details you missed: the trestles, the rock cuts, the places where you can see the raw drill marks in the granite. By the time we rolled back into Skagway three hours after leaving, I understood why people call this one of the great scenic railroads of the world.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
- When to go: The season runs roughly May through September. July and August bring the warmest weather and the biggest crowds; late May and early September are quieter and often just as lovely.
- Booking the train: The Summit Excursion sells out, especially on heavy cruise days. Book directly with White Pass & Yukon Route or through your ship well in advance.
- Which side to sit on: On the way up, the left side of the train has the best views of the gorge and valley. The crew rotates everyone at the summit, so it evens out.
- Crossing into Canada: The standard Summit Excursion turns around at the border without stopping, so no passport is needed. Longer trips to Fraser, Bennett, or Carcross require one.
- Dress in layers: It can be 65°F in town and 40°F with wind at the summit on the same afternoon.
- Cell service: Spotty to nonexistent once you leave town. Download anything you need beforehand.
- Give yourself a full day: Many people see Skagway in four hours. The train alone is three. Stay longer if you can.
Skagway is a small town with an outsized story, and the White Pass & Yukon Route is the thread that ties it all together. The gold ran out long ago. The stampeders are gone. But stand on the open platform of a vintage rail car as it climbs through the clouds toward the summit, and for a few hours you can feel exactly why they came.
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