Skagway experienced two booms. One when gold was discovered in 1896 in the Canadian Yukon which was only accessible by sea and a grueling trek across White (Dead Horse) Pass.
The second was when the U.S. decided to defend against Japanese invasion during WWII.
Skagway by then had a rail way
to Canada's interior which proved useful to supply the building of the new Canada - Alaska Highway to fortify against the Japanese take-over of one of the Aleutian Islands. I didn't realize the Japanese actually had occupied, and not just bombed, American soil. The Battle of the Aleutian Islands is known as the Forgotten Battle as the Battle of Guadalcanal, in which the USS Juneau sank, overshadowed it. "There were 3,929 U.S. casualties: 549 were killed, 1,148 were injured,
1,200 had severe cold injuries, 614 succumbed to disease, and 318 died
of miscellaneous causes, largely Japanese booby traps and friendly fire."
Today it's mostly a historic tourist town keeping the past alive. This photo was in a museum in back of a store.
"Of the twenty mushers who rushed the serum from Nenana to Nome, 674
miles away, the man who drove the furthest in perilous conditions was
Alaska's great sled dog racer Leonhard Seppala. And the dog that led
Seppala's team on a loop of two hundred and sixty miles, including a
long stretch over the fracturing ice of Norton Sound was the same dog
with an impressive record of race victories over the previous decade --
a small, feisty Siberian Husky named Togo, the real hero of the serum
run. It wore Togo out and he was unable to race much after that." Please read the rest of this dog's story here.
A guy on the cruise ship joked that Skagway seemed like a town that they rolled out just before we got there, then rolled back up and put away when we left. It seems to exist on two sides of one single street running straight north. But our walking excursion off that one main road, which took us behind some peoples front yards and to the memorable little local museum where we spent a lot of time, gave the town realism and character. Initially I didn't like the place because of the horrific greed that accompanied the gold rush there (including the several nefarious greed-incited events that defined the history of the place). But seeing the artifacts from individuals that lived there throughout it's history, and reading about some of their lives in the museum, and observing the natural beauty of the place, and realizing the hardships that the locals endure to make it through the winter... all these things gave the place a significance that made it seem special.
ReplyDelete