Ghosts and Good Time Girls Walking Tour of Skagway

This Sunday morning dawned yet another cloudy and rather gray day in Skagway, but since it was my day off I decided to try and go stand-by on another one of the tours I sell at the Sales and Service desk. Obviously we can inform our guests better about the tour if we’ve taken the tour ourselves and have first-hand experience, so even though I take the tours on my own time I consider it a great perk of the job.

Our "madam" tour guide, "Landa Mandalay"

Today’s tour was the Ghost and Good Time Girls Walking Tour, led by a lovely young “madam” in full 1898 “red light district” costume. Our guide for today’s tour was the petite Madam Landa Mandalay, originally from Wyoming but a recent graduate of college in Utah.

Lessons in street walking and learning how to "stop traffic"

The tour begins at the building which currently houses both the Skagway City Museum and City Hall, but which previously was a women’s college. From there the tour saunters through the streets and ‘back alleys” of Skagway, touching on the historic buildings and other landmark with of course a special emphasis on the good time girls who worked in brothels throughout the region and were an important part of the gold rush era.

The tour takes a light-hearted look at the occupational aspects and hazards of what life was like in the late 1800’s for a madam or “good time” girl, so it’s a good idea to bring your sense of humor and get into the spirit of the experience. Although the tour does touch on some of the realities of the occupation with the mention of bouncers which were a fixture in most brothels and bordellos for obvious reasons, and there is also a brief reminder that while prostitution may be illegal in most places today, real life sexual slavery does still exist today – and the US is no exception to this harsh reality.

The upstairs brothel tour

But that educational reminder aside, the remainder of the tour is simply aimed at a fun look at perhaps the brasher side of the Klondike’s history, including the chance to learn how to “walk the streets” with style and how to “stop traffic,” and also touching on some of Skagway’s local ghost stories.

The tour ends at the famous (or perhaps infamous) Red Onion Saloon and fomerly brothel. There is still a brothel upstairs, but now guests only get a tour! Photo at right shows Madam Mandalay finishing the "stopping traffic" walk with her typical stylish flourish!

The finale is an upstairs tour of the historic Red Onion Saloon and Brothel, an actual former brothel where the upstairs still gives visitors a delightful (but legal) twist on the “$5 for 15 minutes” visit!