Peeing in a coffee can, an art “Dusty” Hannon had no interest in mastering, led her to carry her very own chamber pot on the train to Carcross. Well, of course. Everybody in Skagway and in sister town Carcross, for that matter, knew “Dusty”, accepted her logic. Skagway welcomed and took its true flavor from the unique characters who made their way to it over the years.
Skagway had a normal side.
A man named Kirmse offered a jewelry store, his friend Henry Ask, a grocery and dry goods store. You could get a shave and a haircut at Selmer’s barbershop. A Mr. Rasmussen moved from Sweden to Skagway and opened The Alaska Bank, an actual concrete structure.
Bush pilot, Verne Bookwalter, needed an air strip so the town cleared stumps, rocks and abandoned shacks from a field along the river. Harriett Pullen’s Pullen House became a Skagway Institution. In 1926 the railroad brought Dr. Peter Dahl and his wife Vera to town. Dahl worked from a small office at the White Pass Hospital, a two story 12 bed hospital on Broadway St.
But Vera Dahl, the doctor’s wife, became best friends with Dusty Hannon (whose nickname came from her oft repeated, “well that’s not so dusty”). The ladies travelled regularly on the train up to Carcross for marathon bridge sessions. Dusty carried her chamber pot up on the train. We’re not sure how Vera addressed the problem.
“Old Man Davis” who claimed to have fought in the Civil War, made his own, unique contribution to the atmosphere in Skagway. He never bathed because he considered bathing an unnatural activity, incompatible with good health. Winds blew frequently in Skagway and residents knew to be up wind when they encountered Davis. (107)
Ed Gedney, errant son of an upper-class New York family made his way to Skagway—no one knew how or why. Sober, Ed was charming. Drunk he was a staggering, falling down disaster. (108)
From mid-June through August, Steamships loaded with tourists piled into the harbor three to four times a week.(119) A sheer rock cliff bordered the dock where they tied up, and it was covered with painted emblems. Among the emblems a white skull represented Soapy Smith, the most famous con man and gangster of the Gold Rush days.
After mid-September, the ships came less frequently. Trains up to Carcross ran only two to three times a week and snow drifts blanketed the tracks. Mail to Skagway that came almost daily during summer came only twice a month in the winter. The little town entered a period of almost total isolation.