Skagway

Attractions

• Arctic Brotherhood Hall +

  The most outlandish building of Skagway’s seven-block historical corridor along Broadway Street, and possibly the most photographed building in Alaska, is Arctic Brotherhood Hall. What was a fraternal hall is now home of the Skagway Convention & Visitors Bureau. And you can’t miss it even if you tried. Its façade is covered with 8,833 pieces of driftwood that were attached in 1899 and extensively renovated, piece-by-piece, in 2005.

• Bernard Moore House +

  Adjacent to Moore’s Cabin is Bernard Moore House, which was also restored by the National Park Service and features exhibits and furnishings depicting family life during the gold rush.

• Chilkoot Trail Center +

  If you're planning to hike the Chilkoot Trail, you will want to first stop at this National Park Service visitor center in the restored Martin Itjen House on Broadway. The center is a clearinghouse for information on permits and transportation for the popular trail that is 33 miles long and includes crossing the Chilkoot Pass.

• Corrington Museum of Alaska History +

  Located in a gift shop, Corrington Museum of Alaska History features more than 40 artifacts, ranging from six-foot mammoth tusk and a fossilized mastodon tooth to hand woven spruce-root and baleen baskets, all set to scenes of Alaska Natives living in the wilderness and European explorers. The most impressive display however is the large collection of engraved walrus tusks.

• Dyea +

  In 1898, the nearby town of Dyea was Skagway's rival. Located at the foot of the Chilkoot Trail, Dyea was the staging area for thousands of stampeders on the their way to Lake Bennett for the float to Dawson City. After the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad chose Skagway as its departure point in 1900, Dyea quickly died. Today the town is the site of gold-rush cabins, the pilings of Dyea Wharf and Slide Cemetery, where 47 men and women were buried after perishing in an avalanche on the Chilkoot Trail in April 1898.

  A self-guided walking tour brochure is available from the National Park Service visitor center in Skagway for those who want to venture out and explore the ghost town. Or you can join a ranger-led walk, which meets at the parking area twice at daily. The NPS also maintains a campground at Dyea, a popular place to spend the night for backpackers who are going to walk the Chilkoot Trail

• Gold Rush Cemetery +

  Gold Rush Cemetery, a 1.5-mile walk from downtown Skagway, is the destination for many visitors who become infatuated with Soapy Smith and Frank Reid, the villainous conman who ran the town and the city surveyor who staged a gunfight with him. Both died from the incident and are now buried in Gold Rush Cemetery. Signs will lead across the railroad tracks to the cemetery, the site of many stampeders' graves as well as the plots of Reid and Smith. From Reid's gravestone, it's a short hike uphill to lovely Reid Falls, which cascades 300 feet down the mountainside.

• Jewell Gardens +

  Located where Henry Clark started the first truck farm in Alaska, Jewell Gardens is a quiet spot of flowerbeds, ponds, giant vegetables and a miniature train. Guided tours are offered of the gardens. Also onsite is a pair of glassblowing studios where artists give fascinating demonstrations while making beautiful glassware.

• Laughton Glacier +

  Laughton Glacier is an impressive hanging glacier that spills out from between the 3,000-foot walls of the Sawtooth Range. It’s reached with a ride on the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad and then an easy 2.5-mile hike. You return to the narrow gauge railroad to flag down a train for transport back to Skagway or you can reserve the U.S. Forest Service Laughton Glacier Cabin (www.recreation.gov) and spend the night.

• Mascot Saloon Museum +

  Built in 1898, the Mascot Saloon was one of 70 saloons during Skagway's heyday as ”the roughest place in the world.” Today it is the only saloon in Alaska that doesn't serve beer, wine or a drop of whiskey. Instead the National Park Service restored the saloon to its Gold Rush days and turned it into a museum that looks into the vices - gambling, drinking, and prostitution - that followed the stampeders to the goldfields. Go ahead belly up to the bar for pint of sinful history.

• Moore-s Cabin +

  Moore's Cabin is Skagway's oldest building, dating back to 1887. Captain William Moore built the cabin when he staked out his homestead as the founder of the town. Moore had to move his home to its present location when gold-rush stampeders overran his homestead. The NPS has since renovated the building and, in doing so, discovered that the famous Dead Horse Trail that was used by so many stampeders actually began in the large lawn next to the cabin.

• Skagway Museum +

  Skagway’s history is intriguing so it should come as no surprise that the Skagway Museum is one of the finest in the Inside Passage. It occupies the entire first floor of the century-old McCabe Building, a former college, and is devoted to various aspects of local history, including Alaska Native baskets, beadwork and carvings and, of course, the Klondike Gold Rush. The display drawing the most looks is the small pistol Soapy Smith kept up his sleeve.

• The Days of 98 Show +

  This is the Inside Passage’s best and longest-running melodrama. The evening show begins with 'mock gambling,' moves on to Robert Service poetry and then climaxes with an entertaining show covering the town's gold-rush days and focusing on Soapy Smith and his slippery gang.

• White Pass and Yukon Railroad Depot +

  Originally built for the stampeders headed for the Klondike gold fields, the White Pass & Yukon Railroad is today the most spectacular tour from Skagway. Passengers flock to its depot to book one of a number of tours on the historic narrow-gauge railway. The most popular destination is to the historic 1903 Lake Bennett Railroad Depot for lunch that includes crossing Glacier Gorge and Dead Horse Gulch and Bridal Veil Falls before making the steep 2,885-foot climb to White Pass, only 20 miles from Skagway.