Skagway: The Town
Strolling up Broadway you can't miss the eye-catching facade of the 1899 Arctic Brotherhood Hall , decorated with over ten thousand pieces of driftwood and housing the Skagway Visitor Center. Many of the other buildings hereabouts form part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park , notably the former Mascot Saloon on Broadway (May & Sept daily 8am-6pm; June-Aug 8am-8pm; free), and Moore House , Fifth Avenue at Spring Street (May-Sept daily 10am-noon & 1-5pm; $2), now a city museum. There's further detail in the recently refurbished Skagway Museum and Archive (May-Sept daily 9am-5pm; $2) which contains the Trail of 98 Museum.About a mile and a half north of town, the Gold Rush Cemetery is the final resting place of many of the stampeders. Among them are Soapy Smith and Frank Reid, who, according to his gravestone, "gave his life for the honor of Skagway"; a local prostitute, on the other hand, is remembered for "giving her honor for the life of Skagway."
If you've had enough of Soapy and his cronies, you may feel like hiking ; one of the best short trails leads from the cemetery to the 300ft high Reid Falls. The useful Skagway Trail Map , available from the visitor center, details other walks in the area, including those in the Dewey Lakes system, which pass pretty subalpine lakes and tumbling waterfalls, and the more difficult scramble uphill to Denver Glacier. Sockeye Cycles, 5th Avenue and Broadway (tel 907/983-2851, ), rents out well-maintained mountain bikes , and the neighboring Mountain Shop (tel 907/983-2544) rents and sells backpacking supplies.
A lazier way to take in the scenery is on the White Pass and Yukon Route railway (early May to late Sept; 3-7 departures daily; tel 907/983-2217 or 1-800/343-7373, ), which follows the gushing Skagway River upstream past waterfalls and ice-packed gorges and over a 1000ft high wooden trestle bridge, stopping at the Canadian border ($82 round-trip) before occasionally continuing on to Lake Bennett, British Columbia ($128). There's no shortage of riders, so get there early and grab a seat on the left-hand side going up. The company also offers a through bus service to Whitehorse after a train ride to Fraser, British Columbia ($95 one-way).
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