Chicken, Alaska

June 18,  Visited the three buildings in town, gift shops, cafe’, and they have a liquor store which we didn’t visit.  They have fuel at two different places, but they say if you can make it to Tok, which is 80 miles away, get it there it’s cheaper.  Chicken has a population of 23 in summer and 7 in winter, there is nothing to do here but pan for gold and check out the old dredges.  The town has no water source, it is trucked in, or electricity, everything is run on generators and no cell service.  They do have a post office, with delivery every Tuesday and Friday, I took some pieces of mail to send, just because, I read somewhere that if you want your mail delivered here you must mail it 10 days prior to wanting it.  Chicken also has an airport, which they say is busy.  At the campground you can pan for gold, Ken decided to try his hand and did find some small pieces.

June 19,  Ken decided we needed to stay another day in Chicken, he wanted to pan some more for gold.  He panned for gold from 11:30 - 3:30 got quite a bit of flakes and one nugget that wouldn’t fit up the tube to the squirt bottle.  We just sat around until we went to bed about 10:30 in the light.

June 17, We pulled out of the campground and onto the free ferry to cross the Yukon River about 10 am.  We had traveled the Top of the World Highway from Dawson City, Yukon to Chicken, Alaska stopping at the border crossing.  The road was wet and rough, couldn’t travel very fast, it took us 5 hours to travel 107 miles, with a stop for some lunch at a turnout.  We arrived in Chicken about 3 pm, we lost an hour when we hit the border, so we are 4 hours behind the east coast.  We decided to stop at one of the three campgrounds in town, Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost.

Dawson City, Alaska

June 16,  Went out for lunch, had breakfast burrito with hash brown, bacon, green onions, eggs and cheese, very good.  Went and visited the information Centre walked along waterfront in the rain.  Watched the ferry going back and forth, walked up and saw Tony Beets’ tugboat, he is on Gold Rush, has a dredge and has just moved another dredge down the Yukon River.  Ate dinner, tuna melts, and stood and talked to our neighbors from Saskatchewan until 8 pm and then went downtown to Diamond Tooth Gerties, a bar, casino and where they put on shows with can can girls at 8:30, 10 & 12 every night, we sat and watched all three shows and watched people play poker between shows, nice evening out.

June 15, We got up a little late this morning, 8:30, had breakfast, went to get haircuts to a total of $65.00 for both of us.  We then went to the water front where they had vendors set up, walked around didn’t buy anything, nothing too interesting.  We then fueled the truck and drove out to see Dredge #4, about 7.8 miles from town, drove back toward town and drove the Midnight Dome Road to a view overlooking Dawson City and the Yukon River and Klondike River, great view.  We came back to town, walked around into some stores, back to camp, made dinner and sat and talked to our neighbors.  Sun is still shining it is 10:40 and won’t be behind the mountain until after 11 pm.

June 13, We pulled out of the campground outside Whitehorse around 9 am, heading north on Route 2 toward Dawson City, Yukon.  We drove about 130 miles today, stopping at Braeburn Lodge where they sell cinnamon buns, huge, but really good.  Stopped for the night at Tatchun Creek Yukon Government campground, for only $12 per night.

June 14,  Pulled out about 9 am, drove 206 miles today, with pretty rough roads, frost heaves, beautiful flowers along side the road.  We decided to stay in town at the Gold Rush Campground, you can walk downtown if wanted.  Streets are dirt, a lot of the buildings where redone and look new, with some exceptions.  Drove around town, went into the grocery store walked into the hardware store and just walked some streets.  Ate dinner at Sourdough Joe’s Restaurant, I had fish and chips, cod, and Ken had a Philly steak sandwich, all very good.  It is 11:15 and the sun is still bright, they say 21 hours of sunlight until the 21st of June and then 24 hours of sunlight.

June 12,  Instead of driving down to Skagway after our trip into Alaska, we decided to take a bus/train tour to Skagway.  We got picked by a bus at our campground at 8:40 this morning, had a stop in the small town of Carcross, Yukon, for about half hour to 45 min.  Back on the bus and then stopped again in Fraser, BC, and got on the train, had to have our passports ready for them to check it.  The train climbed to 2,865 ft and then down to sea level in Skagway, had gone through 2 tunnels, saw waterfalls and mountains, avalanches and beautiful scenery.  Spent two hours in Skagway, finding something to eat and roam the streets and checking out some stores, lots of people everywhere, two cruise ships where at port.  Got back on the bus for our 3 hour ride back to the campground.  The weather wasn’t the greatest, raining off and on, but that didn’t deter our trip, great day.

June 11, Went into town, Whitehorse, which has been the capital of Yukon since 1953, today to visit the different museums.  We took a scenic drive to town and saw the Miles Canyon, water was greenish looking, beautiful.  First visit was to the information center, she showed us the different places in town to see, also got a free parking pass for the next few days.  Next we drove to see the Dam and Fish Ladder, world’s longest wooden, only saw the salmon babies, the larger salmon don't’ arrive until July.  Walked through the S.S. Klondike, a grand old stern-wheeler which sits beside the Yukon River, which has 7,000 artifacts on display, it was built in 1929 and was the largest on the Yukon, had a cargo capacity 50% greater than previous boats and could carry over 300 tons.  Next onto the Old Log Church, which opened in 1900 and then to the MacBride Museum, which has a comprehensive view of the colorful characters and events that built Canada’s Yukon.  Then to the World’s largest weathervane, a Douglas DC-3, a vintage plane that was built in 1942, after blowing an engine on takeoff in 1970, it was then stripped for parts and parked at the Whitehorse airport.  At last we visited the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center, it traces the Ice Age in northern and central Yukon, which, unlike the rest of Canada was ice-free.  Had skeletons of the great woolly mammoths, giant short-faced bears and lions.