The second part of the day’s excursion from Skagway during our 2023 cruise to Alaska on Koningsdam began almost immediately after disembarking from our White Pass Scenic Railway ride where a short bus ride brought us to a rustic setup in the woods. We would be treated to a little bit of entertainment, a chance to pan for gold, and a salmon bake for lunch.
Oh, and flies. Lots of flies. So very many flies.
This was Liarsville.
Our visit began with an introduction on the bus from one of the local actresses, all frontier accent, winks, and associated bawdy comments, before she led us through the camp towards the Hippodrome for a short show.
The show was a combination of a little bit of acting and singing, all explaining a little of the history of Liarsville and how it got its name. Assuming you believe it. The general gist, though, was that this was a convenient location for the prospecting miners to return to and for journalists sent out to cover tales of the riches of the Yukon to meet up. Whether the miners embellished stories of the riches nearly in reach, or whether the journalists embellished the accounts of the miners, or whether both occurred, nobody knows. But those drawn to the area on the back of what they’d read were often somewhat disappointed by the reality and so the name Liarsville came to be. Perhaps.
We’d have paid more attention to the singing and acting had it not been for a distraction. No, not the squirrel near me, although that certainly was a factor too. It was the flies. Flies flying around is irritating, but not that big a deal. Flies landing on your clothes, your hair, your face, your arms, though. So many flies. Everyone was flicking their hands, hitting their bodies, flapping at their hair. I had my hoodie pulled up and hood on, drawn tight, just to reduce the number of flies requiring immediate slapping away, and it wasn’t enough.
The flies were such a problem that taking photographs of the other activities involved simply got relegated to the back of my mind.
Following the show we made our way to do some gold panning. Everyone was shown the technique to pan for gold and given a plate within which there was some soil, stones, gravel, and gold. That was guaranteed because it had been put there for each of us. We gathered around water troughs and set to work and quickly realised that whatever the technique for isolating gold was, we didn’t have it. It turned out, after our actress guide came to see how we were doing, that we were probably being a little too timid with the whole swirly-swirly, shakey-shakey element of panning. As she helped us uncover our flakes to keep as souvenirs she also remarked “Oh, there are a lot of flies around here today!” Yes. Yes, we knew that. I’d like to say that they were also impeding our gold panning attempts, and it might even be true.
Us and our two travelling companions on this cruise excursion, Paul and Carole, then went to get some lunch. This was a buffet style salmon bake and a chance for us to try Alaskan salmon for the first time. We were quite keen to do this because back in 2016 we’d been on a trip in Chile that included lunch near Lake Llanquihué and an amusing encounter with a loud passenger proclaiming they only ate Alaskan salmon. We’d been blown away by the quality of the farmed, Chilean fish – my wife particularly, as she hadn’t like it before then – so were interested in how much better the salmon in Alaska was.
It wasn’t. Now, to be fair that might be the way it was cooked. The salmon bake aspect of the food at Liarsville took away the ability for a direct comparison. It was still very nice, very tasty, and the food was very welcome, but we preferred the Chilean experience here because you could really taste the salmon. Plus, Chile didn’t have flies trying to land on you and the food all the time. Have I mentioned the flies? There were flies here. Lots of them. I’m not saying that every time we travel on a cruise with Paul and Carole that we encounter flies but I’m starting to get suspicious about the high frequency when compared to other people.
We enjoyed Liarsville despite the flies. It was a fun experience, regardless of its authenticity – but what can you expect with a name like that? – and worked well when combined with the other elements of this day’s tour.
In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll return to Skagway for a visit to the Red Onion Brothel.