May 10 - Sandy

May 10^th

Happy Mother’s Day to all.  We had an adventurous day.  We went to Dyea (said like dye*ee), a ghost town nine miles from Skagway.  We passed through mud flats, filed with thousands of ducks and seagulls.  It smelled wonderfully salty and fishy, just like the mud flats in Port Aransas.  Then on into the rain forest, yes rain forest.  It was filled with light green moss; that grows up tree trunks and on any deadfall on the forest floor.  It is like walking on deep plush carpet. 

Back to Dyea.  Dyea during 1898 to 1899 had up 10,000 people, most heading up the Chilkoot Trail through mountain passes on their way to the gold fields in the Klondke 600 miles away.  In 1901 there were three people living there. The town was mostly a tent city with some false front stores, with tents behind the fronts.  People discovered the best gold claims were already taken and gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska.  So off they went in another direction.  All that is left of Dyea is a false front store, a fallen down warehouse and a crumbling wharf in the mud flats.