Memorial Day Ride - 2017 Part 5

A New Highway Experience

Surprisingly, I didn't sleep solidly through the night.  I slept but with intervals of tossing and turning. Jack tells me my sleeping bag "sounds like a hurricane" when it brushes against my cot.  I tell him it is my most unfavorite bag.  I think it is his too.  Finally, I can't stay in bed any longer so I am up and I shower letting the warm water sooth my aching shoulders.  I am soon packed and haul my stuff down to the Harley.  Wade and Jack are there doing the same.  The morning is cool and to the north there are dark clouds but to the south, the way we are headed, there is blue sky.  

We need to fuel and to eat.  I am chosen to lead for the day which I readily accept.  I am looking forward to a new adventure going down the Klondike Highway to Skagway, Alaska. I have never been on this highway before.  The church in Whitehorse is located at a prime location, an intersection of two main roads through Whitehorse.  To the left, you are headed downtown.  I decide we might want to avoid downtown and find something out on the highway heading south.  The decision was based on an assumption that didn't pan out.  We had to leave the road we were on and head back into town almost all the way back to the church.  In the same block we find a gas station and a McDonalds.  Out comes my bag of Canadian coins to pay for my fuel.  At McDonalds the kid at the counter thanks me for all the quarters I have paid with as he was out. I tell him I am just glad to help out. Fueled and sated, we wind our way back through town and out to the highway we came from.  Only 20 miles out of town is the turn off to the Klondike Highway.  

Soon enough we make the turn and head directly south to Skagway.  The day is brilliantly sunny and dry.  I am loving it.  There are beautiful lakes and scenery along the way.

Several miles in we come to the small, quaint community of Carcross.  Just before you get to town, you encounter "The World's Smallest Desert".  Really.  It is the Carcross Desert.  Just Google it.  It is fascinating.  We don't need fuel so we aren't planning a stop really but something about the place raises my curiosity.  There is a turn off from the highway to the community which I decide to take.  What a pleasant surprise.  We arrive just as the little shops and railroad station are opening their doors.  The White Pass Rail Road still operates through this station.

There is a train trestle over the river that drains one lake into another.  The thing that catches my eye is the little general store.  It is the oldest surviving, continuously operated store in the Yukon Territory.  I enter it and find it is a virtual time capsule.  Everything inside is original.  It has original display cases, shelving, gas lighting hanging from the ceiling and vintage merchandise.  The owners also sell modern stuff like handmade dolls, fur hats and the like, but the old stuff is what gets my attention.

Calendars from 1936, 1950 and 1964 still hang on the walls, vintage advertising for .22 bullets, boxes and boxes of "Pride of the West Fine Work Shirts" are stacked on the shelves.  "Big Boy Cut Plug Tobacco" fill upper shelves in their bright red cans.  Vintage fishing tackle, bundles of tea, traps and buck saws hang suspended where they have for decades.  For a collector like me, it was too much.  It was a good thing I had no room on my bike for more stuff.  

We have our shortest day milage wise today so we are in no particular hurry.  We do have to make the Alaska Marine Highway ferry by 3:30 pm but we have lots of time.  Reluctantly we leave Carcross and head up the Klondike Highway.  We ascend in elevation following the highway that winds around pristine lakes blue and dark, hemmed in by steep mountain slopes that sometimes tumble their rocks onto the highway.  We pass two different black bears emerging from the roadside brush.  This is a magical place.  Easily for me the best part of the trip.  Since by the end of the day we will be heading back in the direction of home, this day will be the highlight of the entire journey.  

As we travel higher and higher, the forests disappear and shorter, scrubbier vegetations take their place.  Soon, nothing but barren rock, icy ponds, lakes and snow.  It is so beautiful but the chilliest temperatures we have encountered so far.  It may be in the freezing range, but I don't care as the road is dry and the vistas are breath taking.  At the top of the White Pass area, we skirt the very small community of Fraser which has an obvious mining history from the turn of the previous century.  Canadian customs are located there but since we are in Canada and wanting back into the US, we need not stop.  We press on.  

Before very long we are definitely descending in elevation.  As we pass over a crest in the road there is a pull out with a sign announcing we are entering the US and the State of Alaska.  I pull over for a rest stop, to take some pictures and warm our fingers.

It is cold here.  The terrain is very steep and a chasm opens beside the road which we will follow alongside into Skagway not many miles ahead.  After pictures, we mount the bikes again and I enjoy one of the most fun series of curves down the canyon I have ever enjoyed. 

We stop at the US customs, answer the questions and continue our descent into Skagway.  From this point the temperature is obviously rising significantly.  Fingers warm, faces warm, the sun soaks black leather coats and chaps with heat.  The foliage is lush, green and fragrant, something we haven't experienced for the whole trip.  This is definitely a new land we have discovered.  The steepness pretty much turns to level as we follow the Skagway River right into town.  

Just as we enter town, I spot the local Assembly of God church.  I pull off the road so quickly that Jack, who is second in our procession misses the fact that I turned.  Wade who is third sees me and also pulls off.  Jack motors on into town as we inspect the church.  We are both pleasantly surprised at how presentable the church is.  The outside is as neat as a pin.  The building has recent paint, the grass is mowed,  flower beds weeded and tulips grace the borders.

I am entirely impressed.  There is obviously a lot of local pride and ownership in the building.  To our surprise, the front doors are open and we enter.  The inside is more of the same.  Neat as a pin.  I sit in the sanctuary and enjoy the presence of God I sense there.  It is a bit of a 1970's time capsule with rust carpet and matching pews, hymnbooks in the racks, the chancel arranged with traditional pulpit and chairs for the pastor.  Not a video projector, can lights or computer in sight.  It is clean and nice.  

Jack eventually discovers he is alone and calls Wade to find out where we are.  Jack eventually joins us and we meet the pastor who lives in Skagway about half the year supplying the pulpit.  Brain Blanchard is a nice man and one who loves to serve the Skagway church.  He vows to continue to do so as long as he is able or until a permanent pastor can be found.  The half of the year he returns to his home in the states, the members take over and keep the doors open.  We are all pleased there is ministry going on in such nice fashion in Skagway, Alaska.

I haven't been in Skagway in probably 35 years.  It too has changed much.  The once gravel streets are now paved.

The few local businesses have been replaced with jewelry shops that are well financed by outside interests and manned by people who are obviously not local.  At some point in its past, the city fathers decided that they would make the most of the opportunity afforded them by the cruise ship industry.  The tiny town I once knew is now beautiful and modernized beyond my ability to recognize it.  I do spot a couple or three original buildings I know from days long ago.  

Having asked Pastor Blanchard for a recommendation for lunch, we find the place he indicated.  It is clean and nice, run by a local family just a block off the main drag.

They serve all kinds of food but specialize in Greek-Italian.  A couple next to us is eating a gyro and it looks fabulous.  I make up my mind this is what I will have, Jack and Wade agree and we all order gyros with a green salad, probably the most healthy meal of our trip (no bacon).  It was excellent.  We thank the nice owner / waitress and tip her generously.  

We find there is a Harley-Davidson apparel shop in Skagway and we must pay homage.  It is at the top of the main street.

I pick out a baseball cap with "Skagway Harley-Davidson" stitched on the back and Jack picks out a long sleeved T-Shirt.  We pay way more for our items than we should, but hey, it's the Skagway Harley Shop. I tell Jack "HD stands for hundred dollars." He chuckles.  Wade who rides a Kawasaki is not interested.  

We wander around town awhile and I purchase a coffee and cookie, $12.00 US.  I try not to look too wide-eyed when the clerk tells me what I owe.  I wish I could use my bag of Canadian coins here.  The rest of the shops are pretty much jewelry and art stores and such that we have no interest in so we head to the ferry office to check in.  The ferry is the M/V Fairweather, the "fast ferry".

This beauty is a twin hull design and the most modern ferry in the fleet.  It is a fast mover.  After about an hour of waiting we board.  We strap down our bikes with the tie downs we have brought just for this purpose.  We take the stairs up and sit down looking forward to the ride to Haines, Alaska and on to Klukwan where we will spend the night.  

We are seated and the ferry departs Skagway.  Before we realize it, we have arrived in Haines.  This is a fast ferry.   We clamber back down the stairs and unstrap the bikes.  I think, "all that weight to carry for just 30 minutes?"  The pastors of the Assembly of God church, Wayne and Jane Cowart greet us at the Haines ferry dock and escort us into town.  They invite us into their home and offer us coffee and tea.  The view from their home is beautiful looking out into the bay that Haines is built around.  We go to dinner at a local place that is quaint and nice and enjoy a delicious meal.

Pastor Wayne gives us a tour of Port Chilkoot and Ft. Seward which is packed with people from out of town for the annual Beer Festival.  It is odd to see grown people in swimsuits covered in soap suds sliding down the green on plastic tarps on a makeshift slip and slide.  It looks too chilly for my participation.  

We head on to Klukwan where we will stay in the church / parsonage recently vacated by our missionaries, Otis and Debra Ganey who have been there over the past year refurbishing the place.  It looks great and we are shown to our rooms, again we each receive our own room and with actual beds.  There are also showers.  I look around a little bit, go over the three sets of notes I have selected for preaching in the morning, choose one and set it aside.  It has been by far our shortest day of riding but very long in other ways.  I am exhausted.  I lay on the bed and sleep the sleep of death for the first time on the trip.