Ten minutes up the road and we are at Falkland Palace and gardens. This is still considered to be a royal palace and there was a hunting lodge on this site as early as the twelfth century. We are there for opening time and historical interpreters are assembling to accompany a school party. I don’t want to be picky but we quickly spot a watch, twenty-first century footwear and an unauthentic hairstyle. I shouldn’t judge though, as Mistress Agnes has had to resort to glasses, following two unpleasant contact lens related incidents. I was therefore pleased to see that ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ was also wearing glasses. In my defence I have made some attempt to make Mistress Agnes’ look vaguely old fashioned. I wanted proper re-enactor’s frames but the optician refused to put lenses into anything but their own frames, so I had to settle for the nearest I could get.
We spend our visit playing dodge the school party. The building was extended in the sixteenth century by James IV and improved further by James V, using French architects, hence the resemblance to a chateau. It seems that the influence of his wife, Mary of Guise, was at work here. His daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, spent time at the palace and we were able to view what is allegedly the oldest real tennis court in the world that is still in use; it dates from 1539.
A great deal of damage was done during the ‘English’ Civil War (which was not exclusively English at all), when Cromwell’s troops were billeted here and the banqueting hall wing was destroyed by fire. The Marquis of Bute was responsible for the nineteenth century restorations and the twentieth century hereditary keepers of the palace were the Crichton-Stuart family. The palace contains a functioning Roman Catholic chapel and is the only royal residence to do so.
The palace has adopted an effective method of preventing visitors from sitting on the chairs, each one has a sprig of holly placed on it! No photographs were allowed inside but I was particularly taken with the painted ceilings and the tapestry depicting a British woodland, compete with parrot! They also have an apothecary’s room and a physic garden. The gardens as a whole are beautiful and several gardeners are hard at work. They were designed in the 1940s by Percy Cane who also designed palace gardens in Addis Ababa.
This is meant to be a relaxing ‘chill out’ holiday so the remainder of the afternoon was spent sitting in the sunshine on site, planning next year’s trip to Ireland.
Icebergs prevent us from getting right up Tracy Arm but we still have beautiful views to admire. It is too chilly to sit outside for long so we spend the morning in the Windjammer again, as breakfast blends in to coffee and then into lunch. Great to relax and chat as the scenery and icebergs flash by. I later realise that I spectacularly failed to get any close up iceberg photos. I seem to keep missing out on this trip.
Our railway carriage, one of 83 in the fleet, is named Lake Klukshu. Skagway means ‘land of the north wind’ but we are fortunate that the weather is glorious, so we have great views of the White Pass and Yukon route. Following the discovery of what was actually very little gold, Captain William Moore, founder of Skagway, together with Skookum Jim, one of the two first nations people who found the initial gold, sought to establish a route to the Klondike that was easier than the existing Chilkoot Pass. Their route, past Lake Bennett, was named White Pass. A sensationalist newspaper headline about the discovery of gold, led tens of thousands of prospectors to take steamers up the inside passage and begin a hazardous 600 mile trek across country to the Klondike. No prospector was allowed to begin the journey without a ton of supplies. The slightly easier White Pass was favoured over the shorter Chilkoot Pass as it was, in theory, possible to take pack animals. Over 3000 horses or donkeys perished on the Pass before the railway on which we are travelling was constructed. They began building this narrow gauge railway in 1898 and reached the summit, 110 miles away in 1899. The route involves steep gradients and tight turns and construction was hampered by temperatures as low as minus 60. By the time the track heading north joined the track coming up from the south, in 1900, over 35,000 men had been employed in building the railroad at some point. The tracks ceased to carry ore after the price slumped in 1982 and the railroad became a tourist destination.
Finally, we are able to dock and the sun is shining on the righteous and on us too. Juneau was a gold rush town, founded in 1880 and is now the state capital. We are invited to join a mad genealogists’ excursion to the Mendenhall Glacier in a hired mini-bus. The first challenge is to cram all twelve of us inside. This involves trying to avoid being garrotted by the seat belt that is strung across the doorway. It is a short drive to the glacier near Nugget Falls. Despite the name, virtually no gold was taken from here and in the early part of the twentieth century, money was made from hydro-electric power, before the area turned to tourism. We learn a little of the local Tlingit people. It is very peaceful here, despite it being a tourist honey pot. Sadly, climate change is taking its toll and the glacier is retreating at an alarming rate. We see some bald-headed eagles on our journey but not in a spot suitable for photographing.
We are taken to the Chateau on the Park for the conference dinner where we have an unusual but very tasty, hot/cold buffet mixture and delectable but clearly not very good for us desserts. Chris ‘entertains’ all-comers with the delights of seventeenth century barber surgery. We do present to adults on a regular basis but the addition of alcohol has an effect on the levels of audience participation! At the request of the maitre d’, one of Chris’ patients is a young waiter, who enters into the spirit of the thing. Fiona, our self- appointed chauffeur and also the overworked conference convenor, explains about the psychological impact of the earthquake on Christchurch residents.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 