July 31 - Day 26

Hello All,

Today was a quiet day in Chicken, Alaska. We began the day with a tour of the Pedro Gold Dredge, which is located here at the campground where we are staying, the Original Chicken Gold Camp. Click this link http://explorenorth.com/library/mining/pedro_dredge.html for complete information about this dredge, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After the tour, we had lunch then walked around the town and took a few pictures. There is a wonderful gift shop here with quality products made by Alaskan artisans, so we bought a few souvenirs.

We had a quiet afternoon, a nice supper of (what else?) CHICKEN!, then a visit to the Chicken Creek Outpost for ice cream.

We spoke to two brothers who had just crossed over the Top of the World Highway, and they told us that the washouts have been repaired and it is in pretty good shape. Tonight will be our last in Alaska. Tomorrow we will cross into Yukon Territory, take a ferry across the Yukon River at Dawson City, then head south to Whitehorse.

Even though we had a few disappointments in Alaska (lots of rain and not much wildlife viewing), we have enjoyed being here immensely. I think Chicken is my favorite place.

Cheryl & Don

July 30 - Day 25 - Taylor Highway and Chicken

The second half of our trip today was taking the Taylor Highway north to "Beautiful Downtown Chicken"!

Our original plan was to take the Taylor to Chicken, then the Top of the World Highway to the Canadian Border (where it becomes the Klondike Loop), which we would the follow back to the Alaska Highway at Whitehorse in Yukon Territory. Ever since we arrived in Alaska, we have been hearing reports that parts of the Taylor Highway have been closed due to washouts, so we are not sure if we can get through. It may very well be too rough. We decided to go as far as Chicken, then see how road conditions are.

The Taylor Highway is a patchwork of pavement, chip seal, and gravel. The condition varies from good to very rough, and there are lots of sharp turns, frost heaves, road damage and steep up- and downhill grades.

The sun was out, so I got lots of photos. Unfortunately, the scenery could have been better. In 2004, the Taylor Complex Fires burned 1.3 million acres in this area, so there are thousands of acres of blackened forest all along the road. Milepost magazine reports that in 2004, there were over 700 wildfires in Alaska, and apparently that was not considered unusual.

After traveling slowly for about 2 hours, we reached our destination - "Beautiful Downtown Chicken."

The quirky little community of Chicken is situated 66 miles from Tetlin Jct. and 94 miles from Eagle. It has 21 summer residents, 6 of whom live here year round. This was and is a gold mining town. The entire "business district" consists of three enterprises, which are, I think, owned by the same person. This is the home of Chickenstock, A Music Fest on Top of the World, which debuted in 2007, featuring the Last Frontier Bluegrass Band. There is no town water, sewer or electricity. Wells, generators and outhouses are utilized here, with residents providing their own drinking water, and generating their own electricity. It's a wonder they have Wi-Fi!

Chicken was supposedly named by early miners who wanted to name their camp Ptarmigan, but were unable to spell it and settled instead for chicken, the common name in the North for Prarmigan. Average temperature in July is 59 (record high of 95 set in 1925 - today is 80), and average low in January is -13 (record low of -79 was set in 2009).

We drove into the town and stopped at the Chicken Creek Saloon. The saloon is great! There's a sign outside the front door saying a state law required that all firearms be left with the bartender. It's dark and dingy and small, with an old wooden bar, the edges of which are scarred and carved with initials and sayings. The ceiling and walls are completely covered with innumerable bits of memorabilia from past visitors, including hats, bumper stickers, flags, license plates, t-shirts, name tags, neck ties, bandanas, and what at first appeared to be small tattered rags (we later found out that the "rags" are women's underwear that have been shot out of a small canon outside the bar -- apparently a local custom). The owner, a woman who came here in 1976, saw us drive in. She told us that the best employee she ever had was a guy from Hollis, NH - he worked here for 15 years.

There were only about 8 stools at the bar, and we were lucky enough to find seats. We became immediate celebrities, since most of those present had never met anyone from New Hampshire - a couple didn't even know it was a state!

Donny (who has the knack of being able to talk to anyone anywhere anytime) immediately struck up a conversation with the guy next to him, who happened to be a construction worker who is an Alaskan native. They became instant best buds, swapping logging and dirtwork tales.
After a couple of cold beers, we had to leave to check in at the campground. Our refrigerator needed to be plugged in, since the propane doesn't work. I caught up on email and the blog, and Donny went back to the bar for a while before supper, where he met a few more of the locals.

Apparently the levity at the saloon went on for quite a while -- about 10:30 we could hear all of the patrons laughing loudly and doing very convincing wolf howls!

What a great place -- Not everyone's "cup-of-tea" to be sure, but this is the REAL Alaska. The locals are fiercely conservative and loyal to their state; they say that it should be its own country. They refer to themselves as "we," while the rest of the U.S. is "they."

There is an old gold dredge here, along with lots of local mining history. There's old construction equipment all over the place, too. We may stay here a couple of days.
Tonight I got a nice sunset pic at 11:15 p.m., and tomorrow we are going on a tour of the gold dredge, and one of the locals (one of the 6 full time residents) is going to show Donny around. We also want to do some exploring.

Cheryl and Don

July 30 - Day 25 - Return to Tok

Hi Everyone,

Today we traveled to the southern end of Tok Cutoff, then returned to Tok. There was some sun, but it was so hazy I never got any good shots of the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains, which was disappointing, since they were the reason we decided to take this highway.

As I said yesterday, the road is pretty rough, so the going is slow. We stopped quite a few times at pull offs to check out the scenery. There were good views of the silty Copper River, a classic "braided" glacial stream, and lots of beaver ponds alongside the road. We found an old log cabin with a front yard completely filled with wild delphiniums - beautiful site.

Many of the wildflowers I discovered when we arrived in Alaska are now gone by - the growing season is so short and the days are so long the whole growth cycle is much more compressed here than it is at home. Fireweed is still blooming, and it was full of bees.

We made it back to Tok by early afternoon, and after we got gas, we stopped at a gift shop in search of souvenirs. Donny bought a t-shirt, but I left empty-handed ... nearly everything in the place was made in Thailand or China. I was hoping for some authentic Made-In-Alaska artwork. No luck.

After the store visit, we then headed up the Taylor Highway to Chicken. I am posting that part of the day separately.

Cheryl & Donny

July 29 - Day 24

Hi All - Thursday, July 29


Today we did some laundry at the campground in North Pole, then went to Fairbanks and Fox to take pictures of the famous R. G. Letourneau "Snow and Land Trains." (I will post the pics and story separately later.)

After that we headed toward Tok, where we turned south on Tok Cutoff, since this is one of the few roads we hadn't traveled yet.

We got some good views of Mt. Sanford and Mt. Drum in the Wrangell/St. Elais Mts, but it was somewhat cloudy and overcast, so photos weren't great. We traveled a total of about 300 miles, then stopped for the night at a turnout near the Indian Creek. We saw a total of five moose, but not much else.

Not a very eventful day.

July 28 - Day 23 - II Critters & Flowers

Got a few shots of small critters and another page of 16 new flowers.

July 28 - Day 23

Good evening!

Today we woke early in Circle City. Salmon fishermen were loading their boats and heading out on the Yukon for a day of fishing. We had to wait until 10:00 for the only store to open so we could buy gas, so we walked around town a bit and talked to a few residents and a German couple who had just kayaked the Yukon.

This tiny town is pretty interesting. It has the only "Airplane Crossing" road sign I have ever seen. It appears that when the local pilot lands at the town's airstrip, he just taxis his plane down the road to his house!

The town has a nice, new post office, a clinic, a school and more junk vehicles than I've ever seen in such a small place. I guess cars and trucks come in, but they never leave.

After we bought some gas (only 10 gallons, since it cost $1 more than anywhere else), we headed back out the Steese Highway.

Today was bright and sunny, much better for picture-taking. Even the areas burned by forest fires looked more cheerful, with green and pink fireweed carpeting the ground. We stopped several times in turnouts to photograph butterflies and dragonflies, and explored Eagle and Twelvemiles Summits again. I wanted to get better pix of some of the plants I found there yesterday. We discovered that the fog had hidden more than just scenic vistas -- just beyond the edges of the road along the hairpin were steep drop-offs! Yesterday we could tell that there was a slope, but we had no idea how much!

We made it back to Fox by mid-afternoon, bought a few groceries, gassed up and stopped for a burger at the Hilltop Truck Stop five miles up the Elliott Highway. Then we started north, bound for the Dalton Highway and the Arctic Circle, just so we could say we were there.

The Elliott Highway is paved, but it is built over a lot of areas of permafrost, so it is heaved, patched and broken, and the going is sometimes slow. Also lots of steep grades and sharp turns, as well as numerous fast-moving big trucks delivering supplies and equipment to the oil fields at Deadhorse on Prudhoe Bay. We had frequent views of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline as we traveled north.

Clouds moved in, and eventually it began to rain lightly.

At mile 73, the Elliott Highway intersects of the Dalton Highway near the town of Livengood (population 23). We turned onto the Dalton, and what a difference! The pavement ended, and the road became rough, pot-holed, washboarded gravel! We went up a very steep grade, and traveled about 4 or 5 miles before Donny said, "This is not going to happen!" The road was so rough we were afraid our poor old camper would be shaken apart if we kept going. We reluctantly turned around and headed back south. About 9:30 we checked into the River View Campground in North Pole where we had stayed twice before.

Although we only covered about 300 miles today, it took us almost 10 hours of driving, not counting a few stops. We were both ready for showers and bed. Tomorrow we will decide where we head next. We probably will only be in Alaska a couple more days before heading back east. We have lots of plans for places to visit along the way, including Haines, YT; the Cassiar Highway to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK; Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff, Alberta and more. We will probably spend more time in the northern US than we originally intended, as well.

Until next time!

Cheryl and Donny

July 27 - Day 22

Hello Again!

On Wednesday, July 27, we decided to head up the Steese Highway to Central and Circle City. We also visited Gold Dredge No. 8 in Fox, which is a National Mechanical Engineering Landmark, before we went north.

The day was rainy and cloudy, so even though I took a lot of photos, they didn't come out too well. I was especially disappointed that I couldn't get good shots of Eagle Summit and Twelvemile Summit, which are both above treeline and should have had fantastic views. Instead of surrounding mountains, all we could see was fog and cloud.

Eagle Summit and Twelvemile Summit were both prime areas to find alpine and tundra wildflowers. Even though it was raining and the wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to stand up at times, I managed to get photos of several more new wildflowers. The tundra is so beautiful! Every square inch is covered with miniature plants, mosses and lichens. The vegetation is so thick and deep, it was like walking on a sponge.

It is about 161 miles from Fairbanks to Circle City (population 94), which is situated on the banks of the Yukon River just 50 miles south of the Arctic circle. The first 62 miles are paved, and the rest is gravel. The road was in pretty good shape, except for the last 40 miles between Central and Circle City. Unfortunately, there have been several huge forest fires in this area during the past few years. In many places, thousands and thousands of acres of burned trees line the highway. Fireweed, grasses and shrubs are beginning to grow among the charred stubs, but it is difficult to imagine living here.

The Steese Highway provides access to the richest gold mining district in Alaska. Higher gold prices have led to renewed interest in mining. In this part of the country, the gold rush is not over! Fort Knox Gold Mine, Alaska's largest operating gold mine, is located off Steese Hwy. It has produced nearly 3.5 million ounces of gold since beginning production in 1996. No public access, and no free samples!

Artifacts from early mining days include dredges, and the Davidson Ditch, an 83 mile long pipe that was built in 1925 to deliver water to the Fairbanks area to float the dredges. Gold panning is a popular activity, and there are many active mining sites all along the rivers.

Central (pop. 95) is the home of the Circle District Historical Society Museum, which features lots of mining history. Circle City is a small town with lots of run-down and collapsed cabins and houses. Doesn't seem like much is going on there. Residents fish for salmon on the Yukon and hunt game in the forests.

We spent the night about 25 feet from the Yukon in a parking lot in the "center" of town. There was a lot of activity most of the night, with young people driving back and forth and fishing boats coming and going.

We saw very little wildlife on our way out here - only a few ptarmigan, white-fronted geese and one moose. Alaska is supposed to be full of bears, moose, deer, caribou, wolves, sheep and goats. Although we have driven nearly 3,000 miles since we got here -- many of which were driven through prime habitat during peak viewing hours -- we haven't seen many animals - probably the biggest disappointment of the trip. We keep hoping, though!

Tomorrow we will return to Fox, then head north again on the Elliott Highway to the Dalton Highway. We would like to drive at least as far as the Arctic Circle Wayside. How far we go will depend on the condition of the Dalton Highway.

Later!

Cheryl and Donny