Sunday, May 31, 2010

We are enjoying walking around the small town. It's especially nice when the cruise ships are not in port. But of course, that's the town's bread and butter. Some stores are only open when the ships are in dock. It is amazing that the sun hardly sets before it is up in the sky again. You can read a book outside without a light on at 11PM!
We went to the only grocery store in the whole town. Talk about expensive!!!! We decided to do without some things until we get to another town. But Canada is expensive too. They didn't have any bread or milk until tomorrow afternoon.
In town we went to a stage show about the story of "Soapy" Smith, his criminal activities and his demise. They only perform this show in the summer because there is not enough people visiting in the winter. In the winter there are a few tourists interested in the skiing nearby. The actors and actresses were really good and most of them were young adults just here for the summer job. Everybody in the show had to also have singing talent too.
Since it stays light for so long we decided to take a hike up to the Gold Rush Cemetery to see Soapy Smith's and Frank Reid's graves. The town had erected a very large monument for Reid. There were also a lot of really old graves up there. A lot of children died very young; some didn't even live the first day. The adults didn't live to be what we call old either. Life was very hard to survive then. We hiked up and found 2 waterfalls that weren't even mentioned in any of the guidebooks we've read. The falls were awesome and the air was about 20 degrees cooler around them. I stuck my toe in the frigid water. BRRRRR! Then we hiked up to the Lower Dewey Lake. Daddy said it was an easy climb. He had read the flier incorrectly. It was a moderate one. We have to climb over huge boulders and sometimes the signs weren't easy to find. It was really difficult, but I DID IT!!!! The mosquitoes were bad, too!