9-11-2008-White Pass & Yukon Route Train

We took the WP&YR train ride from Skagway into Canada and back....you may have seen the power point presentation of this in an email.....truly an amazing task....

The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) (AAR reporting marks WPY) is a Canadian and U.S. Class II narrow gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska with Whitehorse, the capital of Canada's Yukon Territory. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route. The railroad is subsidiary of Tri-White Corporation traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (T:TWH) and operated by the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company (in Alaska), the British Columbia Yukon Railway Company (in British Columbia) and the British Yukon Railway Company, originally known as the British Yukon Mining, Trading and Transportation Company (in Yukon Territory), which use the trade name White Pass and Yukon Route.

9-10-2008-Mendenhall Glacier

After docking at Juneau we took a tour to Mendenhall Glacier. Absolute great.....below is another excerpt from the Internet...




Mendenhall Glacier is a glacier about 12 miles (19 km) long located in Mendenhall Valley, about 12 miles (19 km) from downtown Juneau in the southeast area of the U.S. state of Alaska.

Mendenhall Glacier and Lake
Originally known as Sitaantaagu ("the Glacier Behind the Town") or Aak'wtaaksit ("the Glacier Behind the Little Lake") by the Tlingits, the glacier was named Auke (Auk) Glacier by naturalist John Muir for the Tlingit Auk Kwaan (or Aak'w Kwaan) band 1879. It was later renamed in honor of Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1889–1894) in 1892. It extends from the Juneau Icefield, its source, to Mendenhall Lake and ultimately the Mendenhall River.

9-10-2008-Misty Fiords

This was the only day of rainy weather....we went in and out of Tracy Arms to see Sawyer Glacier.....even with the weather, it was beautiful....we did not get off the ship

Tracy Arm Fjord is perhaps one of the most dramatic locations in all of North America. Completely protected within the Tongass National Forest, this fjord stretches some 25 miles up into the Coastal Range Mountains.
Tracy Arm Fjord is home to Sawyer Glacier. Though it's not as well known as Glacier Bay, some naturalists claim Sawyer Glacier is even more spectacular. Framed by 7,000-foot-high snowcapped mountains, which drop immediately to sea level. The area is surrounded by sheer 1,500-to 2,000-foot walls of granite falling into the extremely narrow passage, creating countless waterfalls and strange rock formations covered in forest, and trees hanging on to precipices at impossible angles

The red is a copy and paste from the Internet and the smaller picture at the top shows what it looks like on a good weather day....