We departed Fairbanks heading south on the Richardson Highway, our destination for the day was Delta Junction. Delta Junction is the top end on the Alaska Canadian Highway (ALCAN). Since we had traveled north into Alaska on the Alaska Marine Highway from Prince Rupert, we wanted to head south back on the famous ALCAN to Dawson Creek, where we originally met the RoadTrek group. We planned to meet Pete, Bunny, Hal and Kim at a campground named Green Acres, Janice could not stop singing the tune from theTV show.
The next morning we said our goodbye’s to to Pete and Bunny who were heading south in a different direcion. We introduced Pete and John’s brother Will in Seattle, so they could stop and visit on the way down from Vancouver Island. We now have new friends from Chicago and we will see them this winter when they plan to be in Florida. We made a stop at the Delta Meat and Sausage Company and purchased 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 and then made our turn off the ALCAN up the Taylor Highway to Chicken.
We heard the Taylor highway had problems, but there were only a few bad spots with pot holes, gravel and mud but overall it was not as bad as we had expected along with beautiful views.
After a long day we arrived in Chicken.
Who would name a town Chicken? Legend has it that Chicken got its name because the the people living there could not spell or pronounce Ptarmigan!! It is an old mining town with 3 gift shop/restaurants and gold mining as their major, and only, attraction.
We were lucky they had a few spots at the Chicken Gold Camp RV Park. We did purchase a cute outfit for our granddaughter Izzy and headed to the post office to mail it along with a tee shirt to my cousin Eddy from the Fast Eddy’s restaurant.
We returned to the camp site
and Hal and Kim arrived shortly where we fit them in our spot. They let us know that Chuck and Joan would make it later so we figured we could squeeze them in as well. Early the next morning we met a few of the folks staying there for the summer, all mining for gold.
This RV park has a gold mining claim that people can use for some price, they all look like old prospectors, beards and all.
Nine (9) a.m. was early for this crowd, but we managed to leave then for the approximately 5 hour trek to the border.
Top of the World Highway is 100% gravel, mud and pot holes with very windy, narrow sections and some just repaired to be passable.
We made one stop on the way at a place called the Boundary. It use to be a gift store restaurant but has since gone out of business. The young men there were very nice, their family purchased it and they were gold mining a couple of valley’s over.
They had mined 70 ounces. The area is booming with gold miners!
We could have made one more turn to Eagle, we decided not to since the town was wiped out and the road is not longer maintained,
Yikes if Top of the Word is maintained and not Eagle, NO THANKS!
On to the border, easy pass into Canada and the Alaska portion of our adventure ended. We continued on towards Dawson City in very bad road and weather conditions.
To cross the Yukon you must take a ferry, it is free and holds maybe 7 to 8 vehicles. It is amazing as the power of the River tries to drag the boat downstream then the power of the boat to make its way upstream. An interesting crossing.
With all of us safe in Dawson City we headed for our campground.