Roadtrippin’ 2022: Fry bread at Klondike Doughboy in Skagway

SKAGWAY, Alaska (KTUU) - When tourists get off of the cruise ships in Skagway the first thing they do is start walking around town and the perfect food for walking is fry bread. For this Roadtrippin’ feature, we check out Klondike Doughboy in Skagway where they have been frying up dough for over seven years.

“It is like a big, flat churro,” Klondike Doughboy Owner Rocky Outcalt said.

Outcalt and his wife Lillian own Klondike Doughboy on 3rd Avenue in Skagway where people can get a freshly made fry bread or a “Doughboy” and shop for gifts as well.

It is hard to miss the shop because you can smell it as soon as you turn onto the block. The sweet aromas draw people in. Outcalt says they sell between 350-500 Doughboys a day and their record for one day is 615. The Outcalts have been frying dough to make dough for over seven years but it is a tradition that stretches much longer than that.

“The miners had to pack a ton of goods up the Chilkoot Trail before they could enter into Canada and one of the main ingredients that they took with them was flour,” Outcalt said. “They used sourdough instead of yeast but they made the flatbread”

Lillian Outcalt makes the dough in the back of the shop, puts it in a blue bin, and waits for the yeast to rise, which takes a little over an hour. Then Rocky Outcalt gets to work cutting the dough and then stretching it before throwing it into the fryer where it continues down the road to get a coat of cinnamon before making its way to the customer.

“Tourists getting off the ship is somewhat like going to a county fair and this is a good fair food,” Outcalt said.

It is a process the Outcalts have probably done over a million times and watching it is mesmerizing, hands moving all over the place and bread being fried nonstop. The Doughboy is the perfect treat for the tourists that are moving nonstop, trying to take in as much of Skagway as possible before they have to go back to their cruise ships.

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