A Scenic Journey on the White Pass & Yukon Route

August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 / edebock / Leave a comment

I first rode the narrow gauge White Pass & Yukon Route railway on a family holiday in the summer of 1967. I was 14 at the time. In those days, there was no road between Whitehorse in the Yukon and Skagway in southeast Alaska. We drove to Haines, Alaska, took a ferry to Skagway, and then, with our vehicle loaded on a flat car, rode the train to Whitehorse.

The White Pass & Yukon Route has a fascinating history. When gold was found in the Yukon in 1897, the news spread like wildfire and tens of thousands of fortune seekers steamed up the Inside Passage waterway to Skagway and Dyea to begin the treacherous overland trek to the Klondike. Each person was required to carry a ton of supplies. Some chose the shorter, but steeper Chilkoot Trail that started at Dyea while others chose the longer, less steep White Pass Trail from Skagway. Both led to the interior lake country where the stampeders could begin a 550 mile (885 km) journey through the lake systems to the Yukon River and the gold fields.

On May 28, 1898 construction began on a railway over the coastal mountains from Skagway to Whitehorse. Thirty-five thousand men worked on the $10 million dollar project. In just 20 miles, the track climbs from sea level at Skagway to almost 3000 feet (914 metres) at the summit! It features steep grades of almost 3.9%. Tight cliff-hanging curves required a narrow gauge railroad with tracks just 3 feet apart as well as the construction of two tunnels and numerous bridges and trestles. Against all odds, working through the dead of a northern winter, the 110 mile (177 km) project was completed in just 14 months.

For decades following the gold rush, the White Pass & Yukon Route carried significant amounts of ore and concentrates to tidewater to be loaded onto ships, but with the opening of the Klondike Highway from Whitehorse to Skagway in 1978 followed by plummeting world metal prices, the railroad suspended operations in 1982. Six years later, it reinvented itself as a tourist attraction.

When we looked at possible shore excursions to add to our recent Alaska cruise, the scenic railway was the one that caught our attention and I looked forward to riding the train again! For the most part, the photos will speak for themselves, but I’ll add a few details as you ride along with us.

In the next photo, the line across the hillside on the far side of the gully is the Klondike Highway.

In the early days and when I rode the train in 1967, it was pulled by a steam locomotive. While the railroad still has two of those vintage engines in their fleet, most of the excursions now use diesel engines like this one that passed us going down as we were still climbing.

That’s the shadow of our train crossing a bridge at the bottom of the next picture.

If you look very closely at the next photo, you’ll see a tiny slice of blue in front of the distant mountains and in the V between the hillsides. That’s the Skagway harbour far below.

As the train approaches this broken trestle, it looks like it’s going to cross it, but it hasn’t actually been in use since 1969 and began to fall apart many years after that. It was a bit strange to look across at it and realize that I crossed it back in 1967.

If you look very closely at this final photo taken near the summit, you can see one of the few remaining bits of the White Pass Trail that was traversed by thousands of gold seekers before the construction of the railway.

If an Alaska cruise is in your future, I highly recommend the White Pass & Yukon Route shore excursion. You won’t be disappointed!

Alaska cruise: Exploring Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan

August 26, 2025 / edebock / 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, our 7-Day round trip Alaska cruise from Vancouver stopped at Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan and also included a side trip up Endicott Arm to see Dawe’s Glacier.

There were a vast number of possible shore excursions to choose from at each location, but we chose only one, the White Pass Scenic Railway at Skagway. Rather than purchasing other shore excursions, I did what I usually do when we travel. I researched each location and planned our own self-guided tour.

Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan all depend heavily on tourism in the summer and each has what my sister-in-law refers to as “trinket alley”, a street close to the cruise ship wharf that’s lined with shops selling souvenirs. We wanted to go beyond those areas to see more of each community.

Juneau

After 48 hours at sea, we docked at Juneau, the capital city of Alaska. As soon as we disembarked, we headed for the Goldbelt Tram, just steps from the cruise ship dock and took a six minute ride up Mount Roberts to a height of about 550 metres (1800 feet).

There we did a short hike and enjoyed the spectacular views. That’s our cruise ship, the Grand Princess, in the bottom left corner of the first photo. She didn’t look as big from up there!

Before descending and beginning to explore the town, we watched Seeing Daylight, an 18-minute award-winning film on Tlingit history and culture, in the Chilkat theatre. The Tlingit are one of three Indigenous people groups living in Southeast Alaska. The other two are the Tsimshian and the Haida. I was particularly interested in the fact that these groups are matrilineal societies.

In the heart of downtown Juneau, we visited the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Dedicated to perpetuating and showcasing the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida cultures, it houses a cedar clan house and an exhibit gallery. I love Northwest Coast Indigenous art and was amazed by the stunning glass screen at the front of the clan house. Made by Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary, it is apparently the largest glass screen in the world.

Like most coastal towns, Juneau is built on a hillside. We walked up a few steep blocks to see the Alaska State Capital building and the nearby statue of U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward who orchestrated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.

Close by was another bronze statue called Windfall Fisherman, a life-sized and very realistic brown bear by artist R.T. Wallen.

Hubby’s feet were getting sore by this point, so we headed back downhill toward the waterfront and the seawalk where many of the city’s totem poles are found. Here’s just one example, the Ishkahittaan pole by Tlingit carver, Jon Rowan. At the top is Raven with the Box of Daylight. According to oral tradition, Raven opened the box and released the sun, bringing daylight to the world. Below Raven, you can see Frog and Sea Lion.

I loved the aluminum sculpture of a 20-foot 9-inch canoe, Yaadachoon, by native artist Robert Mills. The name means “straight ahead” in the language of the Tlingit.

Although we didn’t see any whales close up while on our cruise, we did see Tahku, the life-sized bronze sculpture depicting a breaching humpback whale, also by artist R.T. Wallen, at the end of the seawalk.

Skagway

I awoke very early the next morning to the haunting sound of the ship’s horn warning others of our presence. Standing on our stateroom balcony breathing in the heavy fog that surrounded us, I was transported back to my childhood on the waterfront. Crawling back into bed I fell back to sleep to the familiar sound of the foghorn. Later, when I woke again, the sky had cleared, the sun was shining, and we were docking at Skagway.

Skagway is rich in Klondike Gold Rush history. 1897 and early 1898 saw tens of thousands of fortune-seekers pile off steamships, eager to head overland to the Yukon gold fields via the White Pass Trail from Skagway or the Chilkoot Trail from nearby Dyea.

It was from Skagway that we took the scenic White Pass rail excursion, a 40 mile, 2 hour and 45 minute round trip to the White Pass summit. Considering how long this post is becoming and how much I still have to share, I’m going to save that for a separate post.

When we disembarked from the train, we were met by hubby’s sister and her husband who live across the Canadian border near Whitehorse in the Yukon. They drove about two hours each way to spend the afternoon with us. They took us to their favourite fish and chips restaurant for lunch and then we just walked around town while we visited. Hubby and I had been to Skagway by road many years ago and were well versed in gold rush history from our previous visits to the Yukon, so I didn’t take very many photos. Here are just a few to show you what the town, which has a year round population of about 1200, looks like. Most of the shops that cater to tourists are closed during the winter months.

Here’s hubby hanging out with an exhausted gold seeker and his dog.

And perhaps you can spot him in this photo too. This is the Skagway Centennial Statue erected in 1997 in a park close to the train station.

Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier

Next on our itinerary was a scenic cruise up Endicott Arm to view the Dawes Glacier. The further up the beautiful Arm we cruised, the more and bigger chunks of ice we began to see in the water.

There were other glaciers like this one along the way, but they were high in the mountains and far from the shore.

Eventually Dawes came into view.

Because of the enormous size of our ship, we couldn’t get as close to the glacier as smaller ones could, so this was one of the times that we were very happy to have binoculars with us. The captain turned the ship in a complete slow circle so that everyone on either side could get a good view and lots of photos.

Why is the glacier blue, you ask? The naturalist on board explained that that’s because the ice is incredibly dense, having lost almost all of its air over time due to the immense weight of snow that compacted it. This dense ice absorbs most of the long-wavelength colours of white light, such as red and green, while allowing the short-wavelength blue light to pass through or scatter, which is what we see.

Ketchikan

Ketchikan, with a permanent population of about 8000, was our last port of call. Like Juneau, it is inaccessible by road. It receives an average of approximately 150 inches of rainfall a year. Some of that fell while we were there, but we didn’t let that put a damper (pun intended) on our once in a lifetime opportunity to be there and see the sights.

We started by walking the 1.5 mile (2.4 km) Salmon Walk which is dedicated to the importance of salmon to the area and to encouraging good stewardship of the fish and their habitat. The walk upstream along Ketchikan Creek in the direction that the salmon swim took us past a fish ladder and a hatchery, then along a forest trail before continuing back into the downtown area.

Along the way, we stopped to watch a bald eagle eating a freshly caught salmon. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t turn around and pose for me!

Halfway through the walk, we stopped at the Totem Heritage Center which houses an invaluable collection of 19th century poles retrieved in the 1970s from some of the nearby islands. It was a good place to escape the rain for a little while!

Our walk ended with a stroll along Creek Street, once the town’s red light district, but now a charming historic area known for it’s picturesque boardwalk built over the creek. We watched a couple of seals cavorting in the water there.

After returning to the ship for lunch, we took a taxi to Saxman Totem Park about 2.5 miles (4 km) south of Ketchikan because we didn’t want to walk that far in the rain and the city bus only goes once an hour. Of all the things we saw and did on this this trip, Saxman was the only one that we considered to be a bit of a rip off. We were charged $8 USD apiece to walk around and look at the collection of totem poles, authentic replicas of original poles that were left in abandoned villages in the past. There was no map available to guide us and most of the descriptive signs were missing. The traditional clan house and the carving centre were closed and all that was open was the gift shop! We did manage to tag along with a tour group that made a very quick stop there and heard the stories of a few of the poles from their guide.

And that brings this very long post to a full STOP. If you’ve stuck with it and read this far, you are to be commended!

North to Alaska!

August 24, 2025August 24, 2025 / edebock / 3 Comments

I love trip planning and we tend to be independent travellers, so we don’t have much experience with organized tours and luxury cruises. In fact, with the exception of a three day river cruise in China in 2013, our recent Alaska cruise was our first.

I grew up on the BC coast and the ocean has always been my happy place, so in spite of the fact that it was very different from our usual kind of travel, this trip was something that had been on my unwritten bucket list for a long time. We chose Princess Cruises for two reasons. First, it’s reputed to be one of the more relaxed, laid-back cruise lines and secondly, they offered exactly what we wanted, a 7 day Inside Passage cruise departing from Vancouver on August 12, fitting perfectly with our other reasons for being in Vancouver.

With 3500+ people on board (passengers and crew), swimming pools, theatres, multiple restaurants and bars, a spa, and a casino, the Grand Princess was really a floating resort.

We sailed under the Lions Gate Bridge and out of the Vancouver harbour on a stunningly beautiful afternoon.

Mount Baker, approximately 140 km (87 miles) to the south in the state of Washington, was clearly visible looming over the city skyline.

It was the beautiful coastal views, enjoyed from the solitude of our stateroom balcony, that thrilled my heart the most though.

There’s a vast array of activities to take part in on board a cruise ship. We enjoyed attending sessions with award-winning author and photographer, Nick Jans, and retired Alaska forest ranger, Pete Griffin. Although we tried our luck at the cheapest slot machines in the casino, we didn’t spend much time there and didn’t come away any wealthier! The evening shows in the Princess Theatre were superb and rather than spending time in the bars, we chose to sip wine on our balcony while enjoying the scenery.

The food was excellent and, of course, I loved the fact that I didn’t have to cook for the whole week! We chose to eat breakfast and lunch at the ship’s buffet and dinner in the dining rooms where we ordered from excellent and varied menus. While there were many other options, I love seafood and what better place to enjoy it than on the ocean? I even tried a couple of kinds of fish that I hadn’t tasted before. As a diabetic, my favourite part was the fact that there were sugar-free desserts available at every meal! I definitely indulged and the bathroom scale tells me that I gained five pounds. I’m hoping that all the walking that I’m doing as part of my Hoofing It fundraiser for neuroendocrine cancer research will wear it off.

Typically, a 7 day cruise includes two formal nights when passengers are encouraged to dress up. I wasn’t sure how we’d deal with those. I’d seen packing lists that included tuxedos and evening gowns, but we don’t own such things and considering how challenging it was to pack for this three part trip, I had no intention of hauling hubby’s suit along with us. I did pack a couple of simple dresses for myself and dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie for him. As it turns out, we had nothing to worry about. While a few people did dress more formally, even in the dining rooms most weren’t dressed any fancier than we were.

August is one of Alaska’s rainiest months and the weather can be quite chilly, so packing lists also included warm sweaters, insulated jackets, and rain gear. While we were happy to have warm clothing to bundle up in while viewing a tidewater glacier and looking for whales (we only caught glimpses at a distance) and we did have rain at one of our ports of call, we mostly enjoyed good weather.

Our cruise included stops at Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, and a side trip up Endicott Arm to see Dawes Glacier, but I’ll write about those in a separate post.

Stewart, Hyder and a river of ice!

July 19, 2017 / edebock / 7 Comments

As we travelled south on northwestern BC’s Cassiar Highway, a 65 km (40 mile) side trip took us into the tiny town of Stewart located at the head of the Portland Canal, a narrow salt water fjord approximately 145 km (90 miles) long. The fjord, the fourth longest in the world, forms a natural boundary between Canada and Alaska. Stewart boasts that its deep harbour is Canada’s northernmost ice-free port.

I had to visit this picturesque spot if for no other reason than I was born a Stewart!

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Most tourists come for other reasons though including the Salmon Glacier, the fifth largest glacier in Canada. A self-guided auto tour brochure, available at the Stewart visitor information centre, explains the history and natural surroundings of the area as you drive the 37 km (22.9 miles) to the Summit Viewpoint overlooking the glacier.

Although the Salmon Glacier is located in Canada, accessing it requires crossing the border into Alaska at Hyder, just 3 km (2 miles) from Stewart. If you go, make sure you have your passport with you so you can re-enter Canada after your drive!

Once a booming mining town, Hyder, with its population of “100 happy Americans” is almost a ghost town. Though there are still a post office, 2 motels and couple of stores, most of its main street is boarded up. This building, a gorgeous reminder of days gone by, was definitely my favourite.

About 6 km (3.7 miles) after leaving Hyder, we stopped at the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Area hoping we might be lucky enough to see some of the bears that come to feed at the creek during the annual salmon run from July to September. Though salmon had been spotted further downstream, they hadn’t made it that far yet and there were no bears to be seen. Further up the road, however, we did see several of these little creatures.

We weren’t sure what they were until we checked with a wildlife officer at the viewing site on our way back down and learned that they are hoary marmots. They seemed completely oblivious to or unconcerned about human traffic. In fact, at one point, three of them engaged in a playful wrestling match in the middle of the road while we and other motorists waited for them to tire and move on! I was able to walk right up to one of them to take pictures!

The drive to the glacier, some 4300 feet (1300 metres) above sea level, was almost like climbing a mountain by car! The narrow, bumpy road, unpaved after the Wildlife Viewing Area, clung to the mountainside as we climbed higher and higher. Soon we were passing expanses of snow!

A little further along, the toe or snout of the glacier came into view.

Continuing onward and upward, we enjoyed many views of the enormous river of ice.

I was still awe struck when we reached the Summit Viewpoint and realized that there was so much more to the glacier than we had been able to see before that.

It was chilly, but we ate our lunch overlooking the vast expanse of ice.

Turning around and noticing the bluff overlooking the parking lot, I realized that it begged to be climbed, so off we went!

I’m so glad we did. It was an easy scramble and the sights that greeted us were amazing!

I think the views of the glacier were even better from the top of the bluff. Looking down on the parking lot and our vehicle on the far left (with our bright red kayak on top) helped put the vastness of the glacier into perspective.

Seven hours in Vegas

February 26, 2017March 1, 2017 / edebock / Leave a comment

When you travel with Air Miles you don’t always have the choice of the shortest or most direct flights and sometimes that’s okay. When we flew to Mexico on February 9th, we left Calgary at 10:25 AM and after a two hour layover in Houston, arrived in Mexico City at 7:50 PM local time. Yesterday’s return trip was a lot longer, but also much more fun.

It was 5:15 AM when the alarm clock rang in our Mexico City hotel room. Forty-five minutes later we were in a taxi on our way to the airport. After being in the air for four hours and crossing two time zones, we touched down in Las Vegas at noon. Our connecting flight didn’t leave until 7:20 PM. We had seven hours to kill in Vegas!

After claiming our suitcase and passing through US Immigration and Customs in record time, we rechecked the luggage and caught a cab. I had the driver drop us at the Excalibur, close to one end of the famous Las Vegas Strip, where I stayed in November 2014 with the Rav4.

This was Richard’s first taste of Vegas. We started by dropping into the Excalibur’s lobby casino to try out a few of the penny machines. I soon turned my dollar into $2.50, but Richard lost his and it was time to head out and explore Sin City, USA! It was much chillier than my previous visit, but that didn’t seem to put a dent in the happy crowds strolling up and down the Strip enjoying its shops, restaurants and street performers. We joined them, stopping at Tom’s Urban for a late lunch.

Continuing our walk, we arrived at the Bellagio just in time to watch the famed fountain show and then went inside to see the spectacular Chinese New Year display in the opulent hotel’s conservatory.

Crossing the Strip, we made our way back to the Excalibur where we spent another half hour on the machines before catching a cab back to the airport. Seven hours in Vegas was definitely the best layover we’ve had in all our travels!

Rav4 in the Mohave Desert

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014 / edebock / 11 Comments

When I agreed to go to Las Vegas with three of my closest girlfriends, I knew that I would want to get away from the glitz and glamour for a little while and see the Mohave Desert but would the others agree? I know that they would do almost anything for me but would they enjoy it?

See for yourself. Do they look like they’re having fun?

At first, we considered a tour. In fact, we almost booked a 4 hour Pink Jeep tour. After all, one of the girls loves all things pink and frou frou. Look carefully and you’ll see her pink iPhone in the photo! What could be better than a pink Jeep?

Practicality led the way, however, and we decided that renting a vehicle would be a better option. We wanted a small SUV so we reserved a Toyota Rav4. Sadly, when we went to pick it up early Tuesday morning, that model was unavailable and we were offered an “upgrade” to a minivan. A minivan… are you kidding? Our kids are grown and we’re past our Minivan Mom days! We wanted something sporty! In fact, we’d even considered renting a convertible but again, our practical sides and our purse strings said otherwise. A minivan was what was available though, so minivan it was. No problem, we’re flexible. We simply decided that we were the Rav4 and a group nickname was born!

Renting was definitely the right choice as it allowed us to go at our own pace, spending as much time as we wanted wherever we wanted. The half hour drive out to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area was an easy one. Our first stop was the Visitor Center where we were given a map, some great advice about where to stop and hike, and some valuable tips such as “Watch where you put your hands and feet. Rattlesnakes, scorpions or venomous spiders may be sheltered behind boulders or under rocks and shrubs.” Fortunately, though we saw lots of holes where they may have been hiding, we didn’t see any of those creatures!

We were a bit disappointed that we didn’t see any of these ones either!

The 13 mile one-way scenic drive gave us ample opportunity to see the area from the vehicle but we were there to hike and explore. Our first stop was the Calico Hills where we were allowed to climb and clamber wherever we wanted. The sights were spectacular and the red rock against the brilliant blue sky was absolutely stunning.

It was November 11, Remembrance Day or Veteran’s Day as it is known in the US, so we stopped and built a small inukshuk, a Canadian symbol adopted from the Inuit people of our far northern region, and pinned a poppy to his lapel.

Throughout the Commonwealth, the poppy is a familiar Remembrance Day symbol and people on the streets of Las Vegas recognized us as Canadians because we were wearing them.

On our second hike, in the Willow Springs area, we saw the remnants of an ancient agave roasting pit as well as one of the “Hands Across Time” pictographs waving to us from the canyon wall, reminders of those who made their home in the desert centuries ago.

There was abundant and interesting plant life in the area, much of it looking like something out of a a Dr. Seuss storybook!

As much as I enjoyed Las Vegas itself, it was when we drove away from Red Rock Canyon that I truly felt like I’d had a holiday!

Las Vegas!

November 14, 2014November 14, 2014 / edebock / 10 Comments

Las Vegas was never on my list of places I most wanted to visit but when three of my closest friends suggested last July that we replace our annual Christmas shopping trip with a trip to Vegas in November, I immediately found myself saying yes! It wasn’t the destination that captured my attention but the opportunity to travel together and enjoy several days of “girlfriend time”.

When we booked the trip last summer, we had no idea how perfect the timing would be. After an unusually long autumn, we woke up to winter on Saturday morning. We drove on icy roads through snow and slush on our way to the airport, happier than ever to be leaving Alberta behind! As the temperature here at home plunged to around -20ºC, we enjoyed daytime temperatures in the +20s in Vegas!

We packed a lot of living and a lot of laughter into the next few days and proved that four Christian women can have a fabulous time in “sin city”! The laughter started Sunday morning when one friend, who shall remain nameless, discovered that she’d forgotten to pack her pants! Not all of them, fortunately. Just the ones that she intended to wear to church that morning. It continued until we arrived home and she found out that the pants had actually been in her suitcase the entire time!

We stayed at the Excalibur Hotel, a fairytale castle near the south end of the Strip.

On Sunday afternoon, we strolled the Strip enjoying the sunshine, eating lunch on an outdoor patio and taking in the sights.

We stopped at the Bellagio Hotel to enjoy the conservatory with its multitude of flowers and floral statues, see the world’s largest chocolate fountain and watch the outdoor fountain show. We visited a few shops along our way. Can you imagine four storeys devoted to anything and everything related to M&M candies? That’s Vegas where everything is over the top!

We took in two shows during our three day stay. We saw the Blue Man Group at the Monte Carlo and The Tournament of Kings back at our own hotel. How does one possibly describe the Blue Man Group? Hilarious! Fun! Unforgettable! Or, according to their own website, “an energetic and innovative combination of music, comedy, and multimedia theatrics.” The Tournament of Kings was a delicious dinner served medieval style with no cutlery while the audience, seated around the outside of an arena, watched the non-stop action of knights on horseback engaging in competition.

Shows in Vegas are over early in the evening leaving patrons plenty of time to spend at the casinos. I’m not a gambler but I had lots of fun playing the penny machines and when we left for home on Wednesday, I was ahead by a whopping 55 cents! Pretty cheap entertainment!

We shopped til we dropped at Vegas’ two factory outlet malls. Even with our Canadian dollar at an unhealthy low, there were plenty of bargains to be had and one friend was heard to say, “I had money left over so I had to buy more!”

Though there are many strange things to be seen on the Strip after dark (a large hairy man in a wedding dress is probably forever etched in our memories!), we really saw the underbelly of Las Vegas on a late evening visit to Freemont Street. With a zipline overhead and live bands playing, it’s billed as a premier entertainment destination but it felt to us like a carnival gone wrong. There were many, including the scantily clad dancers atop one of the outdoor bars, who would have frozen some pretty intimate body parts if they’d been on an Alberta street but I think we were most disturbed by the two young beauties wearing huge glittery angel wings and very little else who were selling themselves to passersby. Sad.

This trip was more than just our annual Christmas shopping trip in a new location or a girlfriend getaway. It was also a celebration! When we started planning it, I was two-thirds of the way through 30 rounds of radiation. Now, with that ordeal several months behind me, we were celebrating survival and on our final evening in Vegas, my friends treated me to a very special celebration dinner.

The destination didn’t matter but the company did! I am so blessed!