A YEAR ON THE ROAD IN OUR MOTORHOME
June, 1991 to June, 1992

BOOK 1/PAGE 9

As we round a bend we can just barely see Skagway in the distance and realize just how far up the train has climbed. As we climb the train passes over Pitchfork Falls, the name of which will be come clear later on in another photograph.

The line has changed quite a bit over the year with new bridges being built. Here is on of the old ones. Looking back we see the skagway is far below and barely visible now.

The cemetery is famous as two of skagway more important citizens are buried there. Back in the 1800s, there was a "good guy" and a "bad guy" in skagway. The good guy, Frank Reid, killed the "bad guy", "Soapy" Smith in a gun battle but, unfortunately, Frank was seriously woundec by Soapy and died a few days later. You can read all the details of Soapy at Soapy Smith & Other Bad Guys. The small falls, well not too small as you can see from the photograph on the right where you can just about make out me standing by the falls, was obviously named for Frank Reid who put an end to Soapy Smith, a ruthless gangster in Skagway.

Here you can see the whole of Pitchfork Falls and see why the people named it this. Many of the ships that come to Skagway carry motor homes and buses. On the right is one of these ships taking on an RV motor home for the trip, an easy trip, back down to the USA.

We really couldn't believe it when we saw this bus being loaded into the ship as we knew how big a bus can be. We finally had to leave Skagway and head back up north for Fairbanks. Before we got back to the Alaskan Highway we stop for a bit at Emeral Lake, a spot that is famous for the landscape and the beauty of the lake.

To really get a good picture we had to park the camper and leave Sam in it and climb up quite far. Not far up the road was the "Alaskan Desert", which is really just a huge sand dune but is fun to get a photograph of it anyway.