Fun Facts
Skagway is known as the “sunshine” capitol of southeast. We only get 27 inches of moisture a year. The next lowest precipitation is in Haines with over 60 inches of moisture each year. Owoooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
Skagway has a year round population of 850 souls. It more than doubles in the summer. Back in 1897 and 1898 during the gold rush we had a population of 12,000.
Skagway was originally spelled Skagua but when we made our application to have a post office established a bureaucrat in Washington D.C. thought we mis-spelled our town’s name and changed it to Skagway. Leave it to the D.C. bureaucracy.
The Tlingits (kleen-kutz) are indigenous to our area. The name Skagua (schkag-wah) has at least two definitions we know of: One is “home of the wind” and the other one is “place with white caps on water”. The former is the most popular. Skagway is a windy place.
Students to the north in Canada’s Yukon Territory visit Skagway regularly and call us the “Fort Lauderdale” of the north. Skagway is a lot warmer than Whitehorse. If it’s minus 30 up there, its usually 30 degrees warmer here or 0 Fahrenheit.
A territorial governor and a state governor have declared us to be the Garden City of Alaska.
We are downright balmy in Skagway. Daytime highs in January are 29 and overnight lows average 25. The perfect spot for a second home.
Skagway is also known as the “Gateway to the Klondike”. Referencing the famous gold rush to the Yukon of the late 1890’s.
We are the first incorporated city of Alaska, beating Juneau out by one day. June 28, 1900.
Every house (in town) has indoor plumbing as do all our hoteliers and B & B’s.
Jeff Brady and Mike Korsmo live here. So does Barbara Kalen and Dottie DeMark