Mom and Me Adventure – Skagway and the Yukon

Mom and I had had a great time in Juneau and I was hopeful that our next port of call was going to deliver an equally great experience. I woke up really early as the ship carefully found its way through the narrow Chilkoot Inlet. The mountains seemed to be within reaching distance on either side. I have to imagine that being responsible for navigating a cruise ship through some of these tight shipping corridors in Alaska is stressful.

A little before our arrival into Skagway, I hustled my mom up to the buffet to grab breakfast. We had a long day ahead of us and I wanted to make sure that we fueled up for it. The ship docked at 7am and by 7:15, the gangway was in place. There was a virtual stampede getting off the ship as it seemed that everyone onboard was heading out for a shore excursion.

Skagway is an interesting stop for a variety of reasons. One, it’s an old gold rush town that is pretty much preserved intact as the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. The White Pass and Yukon Railroad is another huge draw. I’ll be honest, I initially thought that mom and I would do the railroad tour. I love trains and the scenery is supposed to be spectacular. But the more I thought about it and the more research I did into the shore excursion options from Skagway, the more I realized that I really wanted a different experience. You see, with the railroad you’re locked into being with a huge group with very little flexibility to stop and get a good look at what you’re seeing. And the train diminishes the opportunity to view wildlife. I mean, if you’re a bear, are you going to hang out near the train tracks while a noisy train rolls by?

So after a lot of consideration, I ended up booking us for the Yukon Discovery tour through Alaska Shore Excursions. Although I was nervous about my mom handling 6-7 hours on a bus, it ended up being one of the highlights of a trip jammed packed with them.

First things first, when I say 6-7 hours on a bus, I really mean on one of those mini tour busses that hold a max of 24 people. For a trip like this, I wanted a smaller tour experience. Some of the tours are on a big coach, holding up to 60 people. From a logistics standpoint, that’s less than ideal. Think about it, a big bus pulls into a rest stop and everyone dashes to the rest rooms… you’re going to be waiting in lines that are a minimum 30 people deep unless you’re faster than everyone else. Plus, a bigger bus won’t be as flexible as a smaller vehicle to just pull off the road if wildlife is spotted.

Mom and I walked past the 800 people in line to get on the train on our way to meet our tour representative. Seeing the mob of people reaffirmed that I made the right decision on skipping the train. After checking in with the rep, we were directed to a minibus. The bus had huge wrap-around tinted windows and comfortable bucket seats. My mom and I lucked out and snagged a spot up front. This made getting off the bus a lot easier for her and a lot quicker for me. I was gracious and gave mom the window seat with the agreement that I would invade her personal space and lean over her to look out the window whenever I felt like.

Brooke, our amazing tour guide/driver, first drove us through Skagway, providing an insider’s view on the town. She has lived there for a number of years, even staying on during the winter. (Lots of Alaskan shore excursion tour guides are apparently summer-only residents who migrate to other places in the winter since those jobs are by nature seasonal.) Ten minutes later, we were on the highway heading towards the Canadian border. (Yes, we needed our passports for this day trip.) The highway is one of those road trips that provide stunning views at every turn. It made me very glad someone else was doing the driving so I could gawk at the amazing mountain scenery.

Brooke made a number of stops where all of us scampered out of the bus to take photos and breathe in the fresh mountain air. My mom kept turning to me and saying, “This is absolutely stunning.” And it was. We were driving through British Columbia past Fraser when Brooke stopped suddenly and pulled over to the side of the road. She has eyes in the back of her head because about 10 yards into the tall grasses lining the road was a black bear, my first bear in the wild sighting! So here’s the really important part on why you want to be in a smaller tour bus: for your safety and for the bear’s safety, you have to remain in the vehicle and be as quiet as possible. In the small bus, the people on the animal side stayed in their seats so the people on the other side could stand in the aisle to see over them. Try doing that in a bigger bus with 30 people jamming the aisle. The other thing is the whole remaining quiet part. It’s a hell of a lot easier to get 20 people to zip it; but try getting 60 people to remain relatively quiet, especially if they can’t see the animal.

After the bear snuck away, we continued on our journey towards the Yukon border. I’m not gonna lie, being able to say I made it to Yukon Territory was a big draw for taking the excursion too. I got my photo taken in front of the Welcome to Yukon sign because seriously, how cool is that?

We journeyed up to past Carcross, stopping for lunch at the Caribou Crossing Trading Post, a kitschy collection of faux Gold Rush buildings that houses a gift shop, ice cream parlor/bakery, a taxidermy museum, a mountie museum, a petting zoo, and a place where they serve lunch consisting of only BBQ chicken, cole slaw, rolls, and coffee/tea/water/lemonade (although they allegedly had a vegetarian option). It appears that pretty much every tour that goes into the Yukon stops here for lunch. I will say that you do not want take this tour solely for the lunch. We had about an hour and a half to eat, roam around checking out the museums, grabbing an ice cream cone, wandering the petting zoo, and seeing a demonstration of sled dogs running in front of an ATV. Let me tell you, those dogs howl if they think they get to run. And if they don’t get picked to be part of the line-up, they look pretty sad about it.

After lunch, the bus continued north on the Klondike Highway, past Spirit Lake to the finale of Emerald Lake. The lake is gorgeous, a dark green in the middle with blue-green coloration near the shore. It’s ringed by trees that are reflected in the water if you’re lucky enough to be there when it’s still. My mom is still talking about how pretty the lake was. I’m sad that my photos don’t do it justice.

Brooke then pointed the nose of the minibus back the way we came. We made stops at different points along the way, checking out the Carcross Desert, the tiny town of Carcross, and Tagish Lake. And along the way, we had incredible sightings of even more bears, including one momma black bear and her three adorable cubs crossing the road in front of us!

Brooke said that her record was nine bear sightings in one trip and we got to tie it with our last set of bears – two brown bears. In the interior of Alaska, these might be called grizzlies; but depending on where brown bears live, they may be called coastal brown bears, grizzly bears, or Kodiak bears. (There, your zoology lesson for the day.)

On the way back, everyone on the bus was super cheesed about the entire day, with the amazing scenery and wildlife spotting. I was so grateful that the tour was even better than I anticipated. Right around 4pm, Brooke dropped off the group back by the cruise ship pier. I asked mom if she wanted to walk into town and look around but she looked pretty tired from our exciting and full day; so we boarded the ship. Once we had a chance to rest in the cabin for a bit – mom taking a nap and me just chilling on the balcony – we wandered up to the pool deck. It was such a beautiful day, with highs around 75F/24C, that they had the roof open above the pool. We sat there in the shade, smiling and reliving the best parts of our day.

At 8:30pm, the gangway was raised and our ship made preparations to set sail. By 9pm, we were slipping through the Chilkoot Inlet; and mom and I were on the balcony staring in awe at the beautiful scenery as we made our way down the fjord. I took a look back towards Skagway, illuminated by the sun still shining over the mountain top, and marveled that I was so lucky to have been able to experience an incredible day. A lot of people say that they want to do an Alaskan cruise but never get to go. I definitely was counting my blessings standing against the rail watching the town recede from view.

Despite the fact that we had another early wake-up call the next day, mom and I stayed up late because we didn’t want to miss any of the scenery. But finally around midnight, we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and so we headed off to bed.