Dateline July 7, 2011, Leaving Alaska via Chicken and the Top of the World Highway
We departed Fairbanks heading south on the Richardson Highway, with Delta Junction as our destination for the day. Delta Junction is the north terminus of the Alaska Canadian Highway, the ALCAN. Since we had traveled up into Alaska on the Marine Highway from Prince Rupert, we wanted to head south on the famous ALCAN back to Dawson Creek, where we had originally met the Roadtrek group.
We planned to meet Pete, Bunny, Hal, and Kim at a campground called Green Acres. Janice could not stop singing the theme song. The next morning we said our goodbyes to Pete and Bunny, who were heading south on a different route. We had connected them with John's brother Will in the Seattle area, so they could stop in and visit him on the way down from Vancouver Island. We also made new friends from Chicago at the campground, with plans to catch up with them that winter in Florida.
We made a stop at the Delta Meat and Sausage Company and picked up an elk steak along with some bison and elk sausage. Janice put the elk along with some vegetables into the slow cooker so it would be ready for dinner when we arrived in Chicken. It was terrific.
Our drive took us back through Tok, where we stopped at Fast Eddy's for lunch, then turned off the ALCAN and up the Taylor Highway toward Chicken.
We had heard the Taylor Highway had problems, and there were a few bad spots with potholes, gravel, and mud, but overall it was not as bad as we had expected. The views were beautiful too. After a long day we arrived in Chicken.
Who would name a town Chicken? Legend has it that Chicken got its name because the people living there could not spell or pronounce Ptarmigan. It is an old mining town, with three gift shop and restaurant combinations and gold mining as its major, and only, attraction.
We were lucky they had a few spots open at the Chicken Gold Camp RV Park. We picked up a cute outfit for our granddaughter Izzy, plus a tee shirt at Fast Eddy's earlier in the day for John's cousin Eddy, and headed to the post office to mail both of them off. We returned to the campsite
and Hal and Kim arrived shortly after. We fit them into our spot. They let us know that Chuck and Joan would make it in later, so we figured we could squeeze them in as well. Early the next morning we met a few of the folks staying at the camp for the summer, all of them mining for gold.
The RV park has a gold mining claim that visitors can work for a fee, and the regulars all look the part, beards and all. Nine a.m. was early for this crowd, but we managed to leave then for the roughly five-hour trek to the border.
Top of the World Highway is 100 percent gravel, mud, and potholes, with very windy, narrow sections, and some stretches just repaired enough to be passable. We made one stop on the way at a place called the Boundary. It used to be a gift store and restaurant but has since closed. The young men there were very nice. Their family had bought the place, and they were gold mining a couple of valleys over.
They had pulled 70 ounces out so far that season. The area is booming with gold miners. We could have made one more turn off the highway to the town of Eagle, but decided against it since the town had been wiped out by the 2009 flood and the road in was no longer maintained.
Yikes. If the Top of the World is maintained and the road to Eagle is not, no thanks. On to the border. An easy pass into Canada, and the Alaska portion of our adventure was over. We continued on toward Dawson City in very bad road and weather conditions.
To cross the Yukon River into Dawson City you have to take a ferry. It is free and holds maybe seven or eight vehicles. It is something to watch, the power of the river pulling the boat downstream while the engine fights its way back upstream. An interesting crossing.
With all of us safe in Dawson City, we headed for our campground.
