Our last stop in Alaska was to Skagway, a tiny town heavily influenced by the gold rush. The tour we took there was the Ghosts and Goodtime Girls Walking Tour hosted by the Red Onion Saloon. This was another small group tour, with ten people in total. Our host was Madame Lavinia Moore, a “professional streetwalker” in full costume. The majority of the tour was related to the prostitution boom that exploded alongside gold fever, with a few ghost stories mixed in.

While the costume and stage name may make the whole thing sound campy and lighthearted, the tour itself was actually focused on history (especially women’s history), sociology, and politics. We learned plenty about the grim circumstances that caused so many women to turn to prostitution, and the often grim outcomes that followed. But we also learned the creative ways women survived the era. Our guide didn’t shy away from serious discussion: discrimination against indigenous people, the horrific lack of access to women’s health care, wage discrepancies, the marking of women with syphilis (which led them to be unable to get work in any field), and more. The costumes and stage names and silly marches across the street added a levity to the subject that made the entire tour extremely well-rounded.

We ended the tour at the Red Onion Saloon, which is not in the same location it was originally built, but still made up of the same essential pieces (walls, floors, etc). The upper floor acts as a museum, with everything from wallpaper samples to a glass-encased mesh dress that was one solution for advertising wares while adhering to “morality” laws. I wish I’d had more time in the museum part, but there were several tours that needed to get through.

After our tour was over, we walked back to the ship. I would have loved to spend more time in Skagway. It was the smallest town we visited and I could have spent a long time walking around taking pictures and seeing fascinating things, like in Ketchikan. (I was particularly enamored by the rock-paintings that were everywhere on the cliff sides.) However, this was my third tour day in a row, there had been a lot of standing around, and I was at at the end of 48 hours sick. I just wanted to sleep. I hadn’t been able to nap when we got in from Juneau the day before, so that’s what I did in Skagway. Jason left the ship again and spent a few hours in town, which makes me happy. He loves to visit museums and always feels self-conscious going with anyone else, so that time alone was good for him. And I got in a really good nap!

The Ghost and Goodtime Girls tour was our last on this trip. Technically, we were supposed to go on another excursion in Victoria, BC. This one was a bit weird, though. First, our original excursion was canceled about a month before our trip due to some weird technicality that wasn’t explained to us. We thought perhaps not enough people had signed up, but when we went to go look up a new excursion, we saw that every choice that included the Craigdarroch Castle had been removed. I’m not sure if the castle itself was going to be closed for that day, or if the contract with the tour company had been discontinued, or what. That’s what we really wanted to do, though, so it was with a bit less enthusiasm that we signed up for a tour of the Butchart Gardens.

What we didn’t realize until getting onboard was that this particular excursion was going to take up the entire time we were docked in Victoria. It was a large group, with likely long, uncomfortable bus rides, and there would be no chance to eat from 4 to 9pm. It was the last night of our trip and we were pretty tired, not to mention not terribly interested in Butchart. Maybe if I hadn’t spent a few days sick, or if we had another day at sea before we’d have to get up super early the next morning to get off the boat. I think we were just done at that point.

So for the second cruise in a row, we didn’t leave the ship in Victoria. In 2018, it was due to rain (and oh the irony, last time we planned to make our way to Butchart on our own, sans excursion, if it hadn’t been raining!). This time, we just flat-out ghosted the city (ha!).

I did try to take some night photos of Victoria while we were docked. I thought I might get some fun light-streak photos where the city would be still and the boats in and out of the port would be moving. However, even moored at the pier, the cruise ship still moves ever so slightly, so even with my camera perfectly stabilized, there was up and down shaky movement in the background. I would have had to get off the boat had I wanted to take any night photos that actually worked. Oh well!

All in all, it was a good trip. I know I’ve now talked about it at length, and I hope no one is too bored. But mostly it’s for my own recollection. This should be the end of it, though! And as it’s been said in the rest of these posts: for more/better photos, see my Instagram: @pookasluagh (where I continue to post slowly so that I’m not overwhelming my feed all in a couple days!).