In Skagway I stayed in a cute hotel, once a brothel, and while having a hotel breakfast the following morning, was reminded I was in Alaska, U.S.A. A woman nearby, talked incessantly about the guns she and her husband had brought on the trip. It wasn’t my kind of breakfast conversation, so I made a hasty exit.
Skagway’s main street was lined with beautiful old buildings that had been turned into overpriced stores especially for the thousands of cruise ship tourists. To avoid their arrival, I drove to Dyea. Now a ghost town, it had once been the jumping off point for prospectors who took the shorter but more dangerous route to Lake Bennett on their way to the Dawson City’s gold fields. Although picturesque and peaceful, there was little that remained of its earlier days.
Luckily, when another cruise ship arrived full of ice cream licking tourists, I discovered the Lower Dewey Lake trail behind Skagway, otherwise I might have gone crazy. I escaped up the hill to a pristine lake where few others ventured. The hike was one of the most beautiful I’d ever taken past crystal-clear water, through beautiful boulders and colourful wildflowers, yet few others ventured beyond the main street.
From here to there 