If you are looking for something interesting to do in Skagway, I highly recommend going to Jewell Gardens and doing one of their glass-blowing classes.

The gardens there are quite beautiful, but go for the glass blowing.

I have done several glass blowing classes and this was by far the best one regarding having fun and knowing what you are getting.  One key thing is that this is the only glass place I’ve been at where they show you an example of every color you can use, and a couple examples of each technique you can use. [Picture at left]

The guys who lead our group explain the general process of glass blowing  and then you choose whether to make a hanging ball or a standing ball (examples above), and which colors and which pattern you want to use.  Most of the places I’ve been just ask you which colors and then sometimes you don’t like the color combo since there are different reds and oranges, etc.  But since you could see the actual colors here, you could pick exactly what combo you wanted, and with all the examples you could have a pretty good idea of what you were going to get.

After picking the colors, type and pattern of the glass globe you’ll make, the team help you through the entire process to ensure you get something you can display.  They have fun with it, while still being very safety conscious.  Left to your own devices, you would very likely just end up with a glop of glass on the floor. [That was essentially my first glass blowing experience, we all made what we not-so-lovingly called “cow plops”.]

The glass takes quite a while to anneal (cool down without cracking) after you are done, so the team there mails them out when they are ready and you’ll get your globe in 4-6 weeks (because mail from Alaska isn’t super fast).

This is the globe I made. I wanted something that looked somewhat like Mars, so it’s pretty much perfect.