We arrived in Skagway around 6 am and shortly moored. We had to get up early because our tour to the Musher’s Camp left the pier at 8:20 am.
The skies were mostly cloudy, but the air was balmy and the temperature was in the low 60’s. Showers were forecast, but several cruise employees told us that if today was anything like last week’s visit to Skagway, the sun would burn off the clouds into a glorious sun-filled afternoon. We’ve had such great luck with weather thus far, but the clouds seemed a bit foreboding so we went with our gut level hunch and wore sweatshirts.
Our tour today was to the Musher’s Camp in a valley formerly the town of Dyea populated by 10,000 people during the gold rush of the late 1890’s and all but abandoned by 1900, leaving the forest to reclaim the land that formerly had been stripped and laid waste.
Today it is the home of the Musher’s Camp, where an enterprising group of people raise and train Alaskan Huskies (not Siberian Huskies) for the world famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Over 300 dogs and puppies, along with sixteen to twenty professional mushers make this their year-round home, where they literally rough-it-out.
We were pulled over rough terrain in a wheeled version of an Iditarod sled that sat six adults behind howling, barking, enthusiastic dogs, eager to give their best to ensure we had a good time. It was an E-ticket ride as we went up and down hills, rounded steep corners and bounced over ruts and rocks as the musher yelled commands to his dogs, in a simulated leg of a race. Incidentally, all but five of our canine team that pulled our sled are former Iditarod participants.
Afterward, we mushed to camp where we held, kissed and loved on the six new additions to the musher’s family, seven-week old puppies. Each of these puppies will have the chance to grown up and be one of the world famous Dogs of the Iditarod.
When we left the camp, the temperature was 67 degrees and the clouds had all but disappeared. We returned to Skagway where we shopped the various stores (nothing but souvenir and jewelry stores) before returning to the ship for lunch.
After lunch, we donned our bathing suits and walked to the Serenity Pool where we hot-tubed and sun bathed for an hour under partly cloudy 67 degree skies before coming back to our room for our cocktail hour.
It’s a rough life to be certain!
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