{"id":1448,"date":"2012-06-21T11:33:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T19:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2012-06-21T11:33:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T19:33:15","slug":"all-aboard-skagway-06192012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=1448","title":{"rendered":"All Aboard \u2013 Skagway \u2013 [06\/19\/2012]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe best sounds in the world are airplane motors, ship\u2019s horns and train whistles\u201d \u2013 It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em><\/p>\n

This rather insane water-logged life of mine means I\u2019m exposed to the first two of those sounds on a regular basis: the whir of the airplane motors and the stomach dropping sensation during take-off have become associated with another long commute, and the heavy haul on the ship\u2019s whistle means that we\u2019re heading off to another sea day, these things become a part of everyday life \u2013 and as such they lose a little (though not all) of their luster.<\/p>\n

Train whistles though, those are still sparkly. They still speak to me of times past and exotic places and…impossible destinations.<\/p>\n

Me and train tracks are something of a theme…though there are times that I wonder if I\u2019ll ever make it Vienna (or rather, what Vienna has come to represent).<\/p>\n

But I digress…<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, I like trains.<\/p>\n

The White Pass Snow Trail train runs along the original narrow tracks (something my big brother took great pleasure in trying to scare me with), several thousand feet up to the summit of White Pass. Once it carried pioneers and stampeders over the mountains, now it carries tourists with their cameras, trying to capture with technology and imagination what it must have been like all those years ago before there was even the dream of a train, when all you had were the clothes on your back and whatever your mule could carry.<\/p>\n

Though I am on the tour as a crew member, there is no assigned car for the crew tour. So I attempt to tune out the somewhat inane babble of the passengers surrounding me in the old fashioned carriage. It\u2019s not always easy, but the good thing is that most of them fail to recognize me; I suppose it\u2019s difficult to reconcile the well turned out , spit n\u2019 polished librarian that you\u2019re used to seeing sitting behind a desk ship-side, with the slightly down-at-heels looking woman with holes worn in the knees of her favourite pair of jeans and her face hidden by a curtain of auburn hair as she scribbles studiously in a notebook. I may well look like one of them. Being myself proves to be the best disguise of all in these circumstances.<\/p>\n

The first distant whistle echoes off the mountains as the conductor completes his safety instructions: no smoking, no drinking, no walking on the aprons between carriages, and ride on the platforms only at your own risk.<\/p>\n

And then we\u2019re moving. It isn\u2019t the fast jolt of a commuter train \u2013 those feel somewhat like a jet plane taking off \u2013 but the slow saw of a real train, clacking and rattling its way through the summer green of the forest.<\/p>\n

Just before the conductor comes to collect our tickets, a strange sight at the edge of the track catches my eye: a headstone, carefully preserved and decked with yellow flowers \u2013 I have no chance to read the inscription, and can only wonder if the spirit is soothed by the ever present rattle of the tracks before the train has moved on and the moment has passed.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re ever on a real train, do yourself a favour and sit in the very last carriage \u2013 there is very little that compares with the sight of the track spilling out behind you as you stand on the rear platform.<\/p>\n

The train swings around a curve and rattles onto a trestle bridge, spanning the vast vista of hte valley and daring you to look down. As my eyes follow the trees flashing by, they suddenly catch a lumbering patch of black next to the tracks \u2013 and I realize that after two and a half seasons in Alaska, I can finally say I\u2019ve seen a black bear.<\/p>\n

Well I saw it, but unfortunately my camera lens did not.<\/p>\n

On and on and up and up, over wooden bridges and through stone tunnels, as we climb higher and higher the lush forest gives way to the harsh tri-tone beauty of blue ice, white snow and black rock, the brakes squeal in protest against the climb. I can only imagine what it must have been like to make this journey on foot, with one ton of supplies and \u2013 if you were lucky \u2013 a couple of pack-mules.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason they called it \u201cDead Horse Trail\u201d<\/p>\n

Once at the summit the seats of the train reverse, and the back becomes the front. It\u2019s hard to believe that only a stone\u2019s throw from here is the Alaska\/BC border. I am both remarkably close to and remarkably far away from home in fact, as we begin our decent I realize that \u2013 for a few short minutes \u2013 we were in fact in Canada. How strange, that i felt nothing when we crossed that invisible line on the map.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the altitude, but i begin to feel drowsy as we continue the downhill climb \u2013 my father of course will laugh at the fact that I\u2019ve stayed awake this long in a moving vehicle (and right there you have the reason I don\u2019t drive) \u2013 my reflexes are slow, and once again my eyes see the bear \u2013 brown this time \u2013 but my camera does not.<\/p>\n

Eventually the train trundles back into town, back to what passes for civilization here, back to eight and a half blocks of coffee shops, souvenirs and costumed tour guides.<\/p>\n

I wonder what the ghostly eyes of the lost stampeders must think of us as they follow our passage down the mountain…<\/p>\n

Once we all had honest work, farmer lawyer clerk, married men and single men and some who ain\u2019t too sure.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe best sounds in the world are airplane motors, ship\u2019s horns and train whistles\u201d \u2013 It\u2019s a Wonderful Life This rather insane water-logged life of mine means I\u2019m exposed to the first two of those sounds on a regular basis: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-nm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}