Ranger Liz: Dyea

Dyea is about 8 miles west of Skagway. Like Skagway is the gateway to the White Pass, Dyea is the gateway to the Chilkoot Trail. The Chilkoot is shorter, but it's a lot steeper. Both the Dead Horse Trail (White Pass) and the Chilkoot both end at Lake Bennet, where stampeders waited out the winter, and built small boats to sail the rest of the way on the Yukon River once it thawed in the spring of 1898. That barely made things easier - waters were rough and 150 vessels were destroyed.

Dyea was set up almost overnight, kind of like Skagway. Originally it was home to a settlement of Tlinget native americans, who were possessive of the land and especially passage through the Chilkoot. But instead of resisting, they took advantage of the travelers condition - they charged them to use the trail and offered packing services to help the stampeders get through more quickly. Remember, they had to carry over 2000 lbs of goods through the mountains, and since they couldn't bring everything at once, they had to make several trips. This meant the men spent 8 months to a year just to get from Dyea and Skagway to the interior.

Dyea died out, and became a ghost town once the railroad was completed in Skagway, only lasting about a year and a half total. Although it's mostly grown over, you can still see traces of the gold rush era wild west town. This is probably my favorite stop since I've been to Skagway - it's absolutely beautiful and I love imagining what was here so long ago.

This isn't actually Dyea... it's on the way. Forget exactly what it's called... but here the tide is out, so you can see the colorful mud and sand beneath. I love the color of the water!

Yeah I know this is a picture of the same thing, but you can see more mountains here!

Yep, same place. But you can see even more mountains! So beautiful... no stampeders came through here, at least not to get to the trails. This is more scenic than anything else, but there is a sweet little cabin on the other side of the road where some employees here at the park live!

You can really see how high the tide goes in this picture (the brown line around the bank).

Okay, THIS is Dyea. These are the tidal flats... they only appear when the tide is low and they are just mud and sand. Stampeders took boats here, but they had to stop almost 2 miles short of the city itself because of these tidal flats. Then, they had to jump out of the boat, and lug their "ton" of goods across 2 miles of mud before the tide came in! These are really beautiful, almost like beaches (they reminded me of being back in Ocracoke!).

Another view of the tidal flats.

This grave and the ones below are part of two cemeteries in Dyea. I'm not really sure how to read the marker above, but I think all those names you see below "Tagish Johns" and "Dyea Johns" are local Native Americans from the area who acquired English names. I'll have to double check that.

This and the next picture are from something called the "Slide Cemetery" in Dyea. On April 3, 1898, there was an avalanche on the Chilkoot Trail, killing more than 70 people. This cemetery is dedicated to those who lost their lives that day. Strange to see so many markers with the same date of death...

These aren't the original markers... In the 1970s nearby students replaced the originals with these wooden markers. There is some controversy, however. We're not sure if they recorded these properly, and some may not be accurate. The project wasn't completed by the National Park Service, so we don't really have access to the records.

Part of the trail at Dyea, as you walk you can see remnants of the past settlement. Very cool.

This was a really beautiful walk. Our guide Meredith was very knowledgeable, and it was a slow day so we only had about 4 people on the walk. We got to ask a lot of questions and see a lot more.

The forest grew over the city in about 50 years (the soil is extremely fertile because of the farms that existed here, as well as the human and animal excrement that was left here during the time of the gold rush because of primitive sanitation!) Large indentations in the forest floor tell you where buildings once stood.

This willow tree was pretty cool - bear has clawed away the area to the right. Yes - they're around, but I've had my education and our guide told us the chance of meeting one out here was about one tenth of 1%.

The wood on the ground here is from a structure that existed during the gold rush. There are a few spots like this... but as the grow over, and bears disturb the wood, they are being lost to nature.

These materials are actually in one of those pits indicating the presence of a building at some point. This is a stove pipe (I think?) and there are some other building materials near it. They're all left as they were found, which I think is really great!

This is the only real part of a structure existing at the site! It's an old "false front" - these were built on the facade of small buildings to give the illusion that they were large and expensive. This one happens to be an old real estate office, one of seven that existed here 1897 - 1898.

In front of this building is a row of tree stumps - they were planted here as part of an "Arbor Day" celebration during the town's peak.

Remember it's two miles from the boats to the town, and people still had to get their things across all that mud. So they had this ingenious plan - build a two mile walkway out to the bay! They started on end in town, and one two miles out. Ironic thing is they never met, because before it was completed, Skagway, just a few miles away, completed their railroad. Why would you go to Dyea to lug your stuff two miles if you could just take the train in Skagway? This is why Dyea's a ghost town now.

These are all leftover. They were only recently exposed, as a phenomenon called "glacial rebound" has risen the land further up out of the water - so the tide is much further away than it was 100 years ago. When the sites of Dyea and Skagway were carved out by glaciers, the weight of the ice also compressed the ground beneath them. Once they were gone, the land "rebounded" like a sponge after being compressed; these areas raise a few inches every year.