Saturday, June 22nd Skagway, AK
Arrived at 4:45pm Westmark Inn
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June 23th White Pass RR from Skagway into the Yukon
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White Pass RR engines          Granite memorial to railbed workers who died making this rail possible.     Grade 6 (impassible) rapids.

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Waterfalls of every size can be seen dripping off the sheer granite rocks.
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We traveled to the summit of White Pass, on a trail that was paralell to the stampede made by miners for the gold in the Klondike in 1898.  This train was completed just as the Gold Rush subsided, however it has proven itself more valuable in the tourist rush than the gold one.  Though there is a bus connection through to White Horse, we had to turn around at the Yukon/Alaskan border and return to Skagway to catch our ferry back to Juneau.

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When we returned to Skagway, we tried to find a place to fix the camera lens that broke the day after El Paso.  The folks at Goodmark Jewelers were kind enough to allow us to use their equiptment, but we were unsuccessfull.  Thus we will continue to rely heavily on the Sony Cybershot digital camera (that made all these images) that my brother Ben loaned me for this trip. Thanks Ben!
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When we returned to Skagway we found that it had become a very busy place, as our little ferry was joined by four large cruise ships.  Skagway was crowded.  After a nice meal, and exploring a few museums in town, we boarded the Malaspina ferry, and headed back to Juneau.

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The mountains near Haines, Alaska.  As seen from the ferry Malespina, on the way to Juneau.
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This was our best whale sighting so far.
It was a Humpback whale that breached several times right beside the ship, less than 20 nautical miles from Juneau.

  We are arriving near midnight in Juneau.  This will be our first chance to download since Vancouver.  As we enter this last entry onboard the ship it is interesting to note that the time is 10:45pm and it is still daylight outside with tempertures in the high 50's.

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