Post 8-4-20124 Valdez to Tok, Chicken and Dawson city

Post 8-4-2014 Valdez to Tok, Chicken and Dawson City

Glacier along highway

Getting our normal late start, we strolled along the highway and stopped at a few places we passed by coming into Valdez.  First up was at a water fall that you could walk up to and observe closely.  Next stop was where the intended railroad would go through the mountains. Seem there were about nine companies vieing for the project. All disagreed who would be owner and it ensued into a gun battle.  This one ended up not being built. Another tunnel was completed and this was still being dug through when they stopped.

                                                                                              The old railroad tunnel entrance

While at the tunnel we discovered I had failed to reinstall the gas cap in Valdez. So we had to un-couple the truck and I drove the 22 miles back to get it. My bad for the day. So I thought

Next we stopped at Mount Worthing Glacier and walked as close to it as we could. Several people were walking all the way to it but it would have been just too much for us. It is farther away than it appears and a lot of rock climbing would have to be done.  You can't see them, but there are  few people on the glacier.


I have developed a terrible cough that just kept getting worse. It along with this chest cold was making me miserable, so we decided to stop outside Tok for the night. During the night it got much worse and Nita thought we should find a doctor. The next morning we did. He checked me over, took an x-ray and gave me more medications to take.  They worked.

After a day in Tok, we headed up the road to “Chicken” with plans to go on across to Yukon Territory to “Dawson City. Having heard about the road from Chicken to Dawson City, we decided to leave the motor home in Chicken and drive the truck. Good decision but will entail extra driving to get back to Chicken.

                                                                                         This Chicken is made of metal from school lockers in Homer, AK.  It was trucked to Chicken, 615 miles, at 20 mph.

                Scenes from Chicken                               Typical little log cabin with moss and grass roof
First, about the name Chicken.  It seems that the townsfolk wanted to name their town for the state bird, the ptarmigan, but no one knew how to spell it.  Since they all called the ptarmigan a "chicken", they just named the town "Chicken".  And so it is!  
                                                                           The Chicken, AK post office

The road, 120 miles between the two is mostly a gravel/ dirt/mountain after mountain,  winding road that is quite narrow in places and hardly any traffic. It is called  “Top of the World Highway” and believe me it is.  They used to call it the ridge road because it went over the mountains instead of through the valley's. You can see forever. There are NO gas stations along the way. Only one pull over rest stop with out- houses. I think  there was 15 miles of newly new bedded/built up new highway from the border station toward Chicken”



Dawson City

What a unique place. First, you have to take a ferry across the Yukon River that is a “trip”. It’s a small ferry that holds five or six vehicles. There is no pier or landing except where they build up the waters edge with gravel  and ram the ferry into the bank. They keep a pile of dirt/gravel  adjacent to the water and a back hoe to rebuild as necessary.


Dawson City is where the Klondike Gold Rush started and became later a staging area for stocking up supplies for  would be miners, assaying gold  found and sending it on to Vancouver  for banking. They went through several methods for digging that eventually ended with dredging. As they modernized the city, they never paved any roads or streets and they are still dirt  with wooden boardwalks. There are numerous buildings that were preserved “as was”.  We visited "Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall" and enjoyed the show.  Learned later that it is a "not for profit" local organization, operated by the visitors association and the proceeds are reinvested in the community.


We visited the “Robert Service” Cabin where he lived until 1912 at which time he relocated to Europe until he died in 1958. A neighbor bought the place and has preserved it since. It is a really unique two rooms where he lived and worked writing his poetry.




Next, right down the road, was “Jack London’s” Cabin, where he wrote  “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, but we couldn't go inside the cabin and couldn't look without paying for a tour.

So, across the river by ferry and we came  back to Chicken.

Should you ever come this way, Dawson City should be put on you itinerary. It was a very worthwhile trip even though it’s a bit off the normal path. The roads s are passable even for a “big rig”

Tomorrow off to Tok and ?