Red Dog and Evergreen

Upon reaching what goes for civilization in southeast Alaska, we arrived in downtown Juneau. After a quick stop at the Post Office, we headed down to the Red Dog Saloon for lunch. This saloon has been recognized by the Alaska legislature as the oldest man-made tourist attraction in Juneau.

As we approached the saloon, a kindly older gentleman gave us a foreboding warning: "it's a crazy place in there." But like true gold miners, we totally ignored his warnings and entered in through the swinging saloon doors. Our ears were greeted with ragtime music, and our feet sank into the sawdust floor. We took a table in the back and took in the atmosphere. The atmosphere was raucous and somewhat bawdy, perhaps as one imagines old time saloons to have been.

Chris had the Denali, a roast beef sandwich with barbecue sauce on it, and Katherine had the Ninilchik which was a salmon wrap. The food was very good, the beer was cold, and the pianist was extremely talented. Katherine was pleased to be able to sing along with several hits from the twenties and thirties.

After lunch, we walked through many of the shops lining South Franklin Street. We were amazed at the number of jewelry stores--at one point we counted four right next to one another. All featured pretty much the same stuff, with some slight variation.

When the continual glint of diamonds became tiresome, we headed for the other side of town and the Evergreen Cemetery. The cemetery was established in 1887 and has quite a few older graves and memorials. We saw the gravestones for Joe Juneau and Richard Harris, the co-founders of Juneau. For the most part, the graves were in a pitiful state of disrepair with many broken headstones and fancy structures half fallen into sinkholes and looking quite randomly placed. Most of the older stones were flat on the ground and unreadable, either due to moss growth or the weathering.

After the cemetery we walked to the Prospector Hotel and had dinner at T.K. Maguire's, where Chris had king salmon and Katherine had the black and bleu ribeye steak.

After dinner we caught the express Capital Transit bus and went back to the hotel.