Skagway plays host to a unique venue for their first-ever escape room. At 777 Alaska Street, you will spot an old White Pass train car that hosts the challenging puzzle.
The goal of an escape room is to find all of the clues, to advance you and your team, and to solve the puzzle and escape.
Becky McGill has been the owner of Beyond Skagway Tours, since 2011, and it quickly became one of the top-rated, small private tour companies in Skagway. “We try to have a training/company-bonding trip at the beginning of each cruise ship season,” said Timothy Sislo, the operations manager. “In 2017, we took our staff up to Dawson City and a group of employees did the escape room, up there, and absolutely loved it. From there, the idea of starting an escape room was on Becky and her daughter Kate’s minds.”
In 2018, while on their training trip, they also stopped and did an escape room at the Takhini Hot Springs, near Whitehorse. “This cemented the idea that we would build an escape room,” said Sislo.
After completing numerous escape rooms, over the winter, Becky and staff decided to create a storyline that evoked the adventurous spirit of Becky’s mother, Patricia Silvey. So, the goal to escape—Find Patricia’s itinerary! If you find it in under one hour, there are also prizes!
“With a storyline created, it was then time to start creating the puzzles and design of the room,” said Sislo. “Ninety percent of the room was designed and built by Becky and [her] family, with only a few pieces being sourced from outside of Skagway.”
The escape room was a hit!
The storyline for the original room has guests playing Private Investigators (PIs) on the hunt for where young-adult Patricia has disappeared to. Following clues from a single love letter, left behind, the PIs are led to Skagway, Alaska. This is where the clues indicate that she has travelled by railway, farther North in the Yukon, to be with her beloved.
It’s up to you and your team to solve the puzzles and find the hidden itinerary, to find out where Patricia has ended up. There is only a limited time to find the itinerary, as the Investigators’ jurisdiction runs out at the Canadian border. This escape game will be running until midsummer, when they will then switch to the new escape-game concept for the remainder of the summer.
The new escape game, Snow on the Tracks, has guests playing a captured gang of notorious thieves. While on the train up to Whitehorse, for a trial, an avalanche hits, leaving the train cars teetering on the edge of Dead Horse Gulch.
With an even-bigger avalanche looming, the crew deserts the train, leaving behind a gang of criminals to take the plunge with the rest of the train. “Guests will have to solve the puzzles to break into the safe, get their plunderings and escape the train before it is knocked off the mountainside,” said Sislo.
Sislo has experience working in escape rooms, as well as in professional theatre, and is working hard to create a more-immersive theatrical and family-friendly experience that all ages can enjoy. With working to build a more-immersive experience, he is also keeping families, with young children, as well as people with sensitivities, in mind. “There will be a sensory-friendly version of the game, as well, that will have lower lighting and sound effects and a few other small tweaks to the game, to make sure everyone feels comfortable playing,” said Sislo.
Skagway, Alaska Escape Rooms is open until the end of September, so don’t miss out!
For more information and for bookings, visit https://skagwayalaskaescapes.com.
