Re: White Pass & Yukon 41 years ago-#73 in Whitehorse

I've been back to Alaska and the North several times since then, Ralph, but never stopped in at the White Pass again. My work takes me up there occasionally. I've been back to the towns you get to by water, where the cruise ships now reign, seen how it effects them and laughed when all the folks scurried back from wherever they were to get back on the water (if the ship is docked at 8 PM it incurs a hotel tax which is assessed per room- if you're late you're left!). All the shops and restaurants (most owned by the cruise lines) which exist because the town's population can double or triple depending on what's docking. I have something different to which to compare it.

But I'm glad the White Pass survived and if I get close enough I'll look in again. There is good stuff ahead! The cruise ships got steam running again and who knows what else.

I'm also glad I saw it all when I as a tourist was welcomed but somewhat just tolerated because they really had other things to do. Gritty and dirty and make do and very serious in a very different kind of way. A different kind of railroading- some 5 hours late and they still switched the ore transfer before dumping us at the station. Makes you think different about the whole show and your place in it! I think it was a clearer look at the old North; the folks with money to burn who came to look around were always a factor- but they weren't why you sweated and risked and busted your knuckles, paid three times as much for everything as you could get where you came from, and did without more than you could get.

Time before last I was up there in the conversation they were dividing residents into "on the road" and "off the road" people. The former need to live near a road and all the things to which they give you access. The latter don't. The North doesn't have a lot of roads (of Alaska's 600,000 or so residents, half live in Anchorage and surrounds). The White Pass outfit will always be remote, but it was profound seeing it at the very last gasp of its "off the road" days.

Timothy