Haines and Skagway were on the list for visits today. We got an early start in Haines because we needed to be in Skagway at a certain time to meet our scheduled activities there. All in all Haines is a nice little town of about 1000 which features fishermen, artists and seasonal people to handle the cruise boat tourists. We had a walk around the town with a local tour guide. Fortunately, the weather was nice and sunny. It was pleasant to walk around and learn a little history of the area.

Back on the boat we scooted off to Skagway. If you are not familiar with this town, you might remember it was the gateway for the Yukon gold rush in 1898. People steamed in from all over the world to head to the Yukon River gold fields. What I didn't remember was that this gold rush only lasted about a year. One of the famous photos from this adventure was the line of potential miners toting their gear over Chilkoot pass in the dead of winter. We took a bus into Canada to meet the train for a ride back to Skagway on the White Pass and Yukon Route, a narrow gauge railroad. It was quite a scenic ride which we enjoyed thoroughly. There was a nice National Park Service Visitor Center which we checked out before heading back to the boat.

After dinner we got quite a surprise. When we returned to our stateroom, the crew had left a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries in celebration of our 40th anniversary. That really was very nice. Life is real good.