Our trip now complete to the Arctic Circle it was time to begin making our way south. We left Fairbanks somewhat late in the day and made a brief atop in Delta Junction which is the official end of the Alaska Hwy. Not much here except the designation sign, so we continued on.
Official end of the Alaska Highway
Gets a little cold here!
We moved on to Tok, AK got an RV space for the night and got caught up on laundry. Not much here either but a good place for a quiet night's rest. Early the next morning, just south of Tok is the cutoff for the Top of the World Highway headed to Chicken, AK.
There is not much in Chicken and off course it plays on it's name but it was a fun place to hang out overnight. There is still gold mining activity in and around the area but this is mostly taking place in the surrounding hills. Also on display here is the Pedro Dredge that was used at the turn of the century for digging into the creeks and streambeds. But the best story about this town is the name and how it came about. In the early 1900s when the town was going to be incorporated the townsfolk wanted to use the name Ptarmigan after the state bird, which was plentiful in the area. But unfortunately no one knew how to correctly spell "Ptarmigan" and not wanting to be embarrassed decided to use Chicken instead!
The Pedro Dredge
Beautiful downtown Chicken
Saloon hat collection
The Chicken Poop (only outhouses here)
The big chicken!
Our day in Chicken was hot and sunny which gave me some concern for the next day which would take us on the Klondike Loop, the Canadian portion of the Top of the World Highway. My concerns were soon realized as the next day brought serious rain to the area and we still had a little over 100 miles of (mostly) dirt road to travel. This road can be dangerous in the best conditions if not careful but we managed to safely traverse it. Shortly after leaving Chicken we crossed back into Canada with our destination for the day at Dawson City.
Weather conditions
Took a while to clean!
The road ends at the Yukon River (but we stayed just this side in a Provincial park) where a free ferry takes you to Dawson City. The ferry landing is interesting in that the gravel banks are constantly being graded and the landing position of the boats change as well. You load and unload directly on the beach. In the days of the gold rush sternwheeler boats were used all along the Yukon River to transport goods and people. Just below our CG on the banks of the river was a sternwheeler graveyard with some relics from days past.
Not quite the Galveston ferry but it works great!
Sternwheeler wreckage
The rain continued all night and we were tired and wanted to move so the next day we moved on but not without our first tire issue. After getting gas we noticed the tire monitor beeping and sure enough we picked up a nail. The TPMS monitors the trailer tires and ccaught the leak fortunately while we were still in town and across the street from the repair shop. So a not so quick tire repair got us back on the road late in the afternoon.
3" nail
Our day ended back in Whitehourse, YT where we took a two day rest to see a few things we missed on our way up, do laundry and rest.
More to come....
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment