A Skagway Town Tour Day
- Paul Hallman
- May 8
- 4 min read
After two days of glacier bays and cold-blue horizons in Alaska, the Coral Princess eased into port and delivered us back to one of the Inside Passage’s most memorable towns: Skagway. We’d been here just nine months earlier on our summer 2025 Alaskan cruise, and stepping onto the dock again felt like returning to a familiar scene—same steep mountains rising straight from the water, same wooden storefronts, and the same sense that this little town has lived a very big history.
Where Skagway is—and why it’s here
Skagway sits at the northern end of Alaska’s Inside Passage, at the head of the Lynn Canal, where the sea narrows into a long fjord hemmed in by mountains. It’s remote, but it’s also a natural gateway between coast and interior—one reason it became so important during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Despite its fame, Skagway is small—about 1,000 people live here year-round—though it swells dramatically on cruise days. You can arrive by ship (the easiest and most common way), by road from the Yukon via the Klondike Highway, or by air into the region and then onward by ground. But the most iconic way to experience Skagway’s “route inland” is still the railroad.
The train ride up the mountain
The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad is Skagway’s signature climb—narrow-gauge track built during the Gold Rush to move people and supplies over the White Pass. The ascent is immediate and dramatic: trestle bridges, waterfalls, tight curves, and views that drop away so sharply you can’t help but lean toward the window. As the train gains elevation, Skagway shrinks below into a neat little grid at the edge of the fjord, and the landscape shifts into rugged rock and high-country scenery that makes it easy to imagine what stampeders faced heading inland.
Gold Rush Skagway—and the man who tried to run it
Skagway’s boom years erupted in the late 1890s when thousands of hopeful prospectors poured in, determined to reach the Yukon goldfields. With that flood of money and urgency came opportunists—and none more notorious than Jefferson “Soapy” Smith.
Soapy arrived with charm, confidence, and a talent for manipulation. He set up businesses and schemes designed to separate stampeders and townspeople from their cash, building influence through a network of associates and intimidation. For a time, he effectively ran Skagway’s underworld in plain sight—an unofficial boss in a town that was growing faster than law and order could keep up.
The fight with Frank Reid—and how it ended
Eventually, Skagway pushed back. The tension culminated in a gunfight between Soapy Smith and Frank Reid on Juneau Wharf. Both men were shot; Soapy died, and Reid later died from his wounds. It’s one of those moments that sounds like legend until you remember it happened right here—on a dock you can walk past in minutes.
A local story persists that the town later named a street after Soapy as a final jab—turning his name into something ordinary and fixed, a reminder rather than a threat, and a way of making sure he never “ran” Skagway again.
The cemetery on the hill
Skagway’s history isn’t only in restored buildings and tour stories—it’s also up the slope in the cemetery overlooking town. The walk is quiet and reflective, with headstones that speak to how hard and short life could be in a Gold Rush boomtown. Both Soapy Smith and Frank Reid are tied to Skagway’s cemetery history, and standing there puts the famous showdown into a more human scale: not myth, but mortality.
The Red Onion Saloon—and Skagway’s bawdy past
No Skagway visit feels complete without the Red Onion Saloon, one of the town’s most recognizable landmarks and a vivid reminder that Gold Rush towns ran on more than grit and ambition. The Red Onion began as a brothel, and its story is woven into the realities of the era—commerce, loneliness, entertainment, and survival under one roof. Today it leans into that past, offering atmosphere and storytelling that make the history feel close enough to touch.
Our day in town
This time, we kept it simple and fun. We spent hours wandering through all the stores—part browsing, part souvenir hunting, part enjoying the feeling of being able to take our time in a place we already knew.
We eventually stopped at the hotel for a classic Skagway treat: a Reindeer Fart, followed by a few more drinks, letting the afternoon settle into easy conversation. What is in a Reindeer Fart Drink - - -The Reindeer Fart shot is a festive, layered shooter similar to a "Duck Fart," typically consisting of equal parts Kahlúa, Baileys Irish Cream, and a spirit, often Rumple Minze for a minty twist. It is layered in a shot glass—coffee liqueur first, then Irish cream, topped with the spirit
On our way back to the ship, we stopped for dinner. I had clam chowder, warm and perfect after a day in the coastal air. Our friends went for Red King Crab legs—$210 for two legs—and even with the sticker shock, they said the meat was absolutely amazing.
Then it was back aboard the Coral Princess, Skagway fading behind us as the ship returned to motion.
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