6th May 2025

That evening the Koningsdam sailed on to the next stop of Skagway. It left after 10pm and arrived around 6.00am. We headed for an early breakfast on the upper deck, a self-service buffet. Seemed complicated, and if you left your seat to get something else, there was no guarantee your plates would not be cleared away, and someone else would have taken your space.  Light breakfast. Oh, and there was a whale in the harbour blowing in the docking area.

Skagway is the port where the gold miners came during the Klondike gold rush in the last decade of the 1800s. We were heading out for the White Pass Summit Rail train trip. Some issues with the audio on the coach taking us to the start, so a stop beside the road to have the sound system fixed. This was the first time the guide/bus driver had taken this trip. We drove up to the border and entered, yet again, into Canada.

The road snow depth indicators are unlike UK and European ones. The European ones are poles on the side of the road, how near to the pole are you able to go before you are off the road. The Alaskan guides have a horizontal section at the top, pointing in towards the road. These are painted with red and yellow paint. The red near the edge, and yellow over the road. This gives an indication as to where the roadside is.

The Canadian customs guy checked our passports at the customs post several miles into Canada. Here we joined our narrow gauge passenger train.  The trip was all the way down to the bottom, through gorges, tunnels and across bridges. Oh, and this time we went through American customs, and they didn’t bother checking us face to face. They said all checks had been made.

On the trip down, we saw the cross on the boulder for Maurice Dunn, buried by massive boulder in a blasting accident, while building the railway. There was sign on the mountain, “On to Alaska with Buchanan” this refers to a series of adventure trips organized by George E. Buchanan, a Detroit coal merchant, beginning in 1923.

The line was mainly single track, with a dual track halfway down to allow upcoming and downcoming trains to pass each other.

At the bottom we went onto a BBQ and goldpanning show.  Don’t think any of the meat had seen a real BBQ.  Chicken and ribs were on offer.  There were some lovely spicy hot baked beans as an accompaniment

Met a couple from the US on the trip. They were from Houston in Texas, and had come on holiday to be somewhere where it was cooler. Their first cruise as well.

After the BBQ we did some gold panning, and lo and behold found 1.8 grains, of gold, worth $38. Ha!

Back to the ship. But why the two checks for entry, a facial recognition system, then at the ship, a scan of the cruise card.  Oh and bags x-rayed, to check we were not bringing any alcohol on board.  So irritating.

We ate in the dining room, again just the two of us, but this time it was upstairs.

We set sail some time in the early evening, on our way to Glacier Bay