I am taking a huge number of photos from the train. We have never travelled through anywhere as spectacular as thisand I think I have enough for my own screen saver set or calendar!

The weather is better coming back so I am catching up on some views that were so wonderful that I forgot to take a photo.

I have spent a lot of time outside on the trains. Luckily the carriages are restored originals with wrought iron bars.

This is the very top of the pass. There was a lot of argument about where exactly the border was, during the early days.

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This is the border. The railway crosses from Alaska into British Columbia and soon thereafter into the Yukon territory.

From left to right:

USA***Alaska***British Columbia***Yukon Territory***Canada

This is the Chilkoot Trail, one of the routes to the Gold Fields in the Klondike Gold rush.

That's the water in the Skagway Harbour that you can see in the distance between the nearest hills.

We dropped hikers above Skagway going up. The train crew joked about "bear bait", which the hikers didn't find too funny as the stop approached. Alaska bears

Later a conductor told us that when he was a young man, the train driver would announce to the passengers that he hoped that they would see bears.

"However", the driver continued, "if we do not see any bears at all, we tie a fresh pork chop around the neck of the youngest crew member and have him walk alongside the train".

Well, one day, the train which was steam then, overheated and stopped for water. While they were waiting, the youngest crew member got out of the train and walked along inspecting. To his surprise he could hear mutters from the train of "How dreadful! They shouldn't make him do that...".

He also told us of another time when a bear left a pile of scat (which you wouldn't want to step into) beside the track at the "bear bait" drop off. Some joker had poked bear bells, small bells that you wear on your hiking boots to warn bears, into the pile of steaming scat. That day's hikers didn't want to get off the train......

We had to wait in Skagway for the midnight boat down to Prince Rupert. Most places were closed so we did some serious sight seeing.

This is the snow removal train for the White Pass & Yukon Route railway.

This is a memorial to the Gold Rush travellers who passed through Skagway.

Most of the stores in Skagway are souvenir, gift or jewellery stores.

However we found a truly amazing rock and mineral store, the Back Alley Rock Shop.

I have never seen a shop like it. There is a full size copy of this image here and if the website for the store is ready soon, I will link it.

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