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Published: August 21st 2007
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Beautiful Downtown Chicken
Long name, and that's the whole place. We’re up in the northeast corner of Alaska at the border, crossing back into the Yukon Territories. Yesterday was a short day and we spent more time than you’d expect in “Beautiful Downtown Chicken” AK. It’s built near the ruins of an old time gold rush town, also called Chicken, supposedly because the miners wanted to call it ptarmigan, but couldn’t spell the word. Chicken has a café, gas, a gift shop, and RV park, and a post office. Eight people live there year-round, and a couple dozen in the summer. We talked to the café owner (good food!) who is from the Cape May area of New Jersey, and learned that there are kids there, all of whom are homeschooled. The homeschooling movement must be a boon to people who live in this part of the world. Back in 1991, we were in rural Idaho and their secondary school kids went 50 miles to school each day. If you had the tools and abilities, you could give your children what they need, even out here. By the way, we spoke with a teacher in a school district in central AK; she said her district is the size of West Virginia.
Top of the World
Unbelievable views. On the road to Chicken, we drove 30 miles through the remnants of a huge forest fire, that someone told us happened in 2004 - nothing but blackened black spruce across miles of hills. The road to Chicken has lots of frost heaves, most of which are not marked except by black tire streaks where someone tried to slow down at the last minute. By the time you see them, it’s too late for you.
Last night, we stayed at the West Fork Campground and - following advice from the www - left early this morning to drive through the US-Canadian border on the Top of the World Highway. We’re at the top (4500 feet) at the border. Here’s the scoop:
The road has a bad reputation, especially with people driving large motorhomes. The Alaska portion is narrow, graveled, and twisty. The Canadian side is supposed to be paved.
We left early this morning to reach the border at 0800 (0900 as soon as we get into the Yukon). Because the border’s closed until that time, there’s no oncoming traffic on the Alaska portion of the road, making it a much less stressful drive.
The
Yukon River Ferry
The only way to reach Dawson City from the west -- still. AK road surface is OK - really. It’s gravel, but much better than the Denali Highway, though we laughed at the 40 mph speed limit signs on some of the curves. A realistic speed is about 25 mph.
If you’re driving a big fifth-wheel or motor home, be careful. We saw the results of one crash of a MH with toad vehicle. We heard second hand from the state troopers that the driver met a big (and they are big!) fuel truck and panicked. He just drove off the right side of the road and rolled. It looked a little like an airplane crash - not many big pieces. We don’t know how the people fared.
The best advice seems to be to pull right as far as it is SAFE (stay on the road!) and STOP. Let the truck, tour bus, or motor coach on the inside maneuver around you. You’ll do better with a fender-bender than a rollover. The shoulders are very soft and steep, and if you drop a wheel off the edge, you’re probably going to roll.
Sandy’s advice: if you’re not comfortable, really comfortable, driving under these conditions, choose another road. It’s not worth the stress for you and your fellow drivers.
Tom’s advice: if you choose to drive the highway in the early morning, clean both the inside and outside of your windows and your mirrors. You’ll be driving into the sun.
This is gold rush country, not much different from the 1890s, and the land is not much more hospitable to humans than it was then. There still seem to be more abandoned gold dredges than occupied buildings. The US customs building here at the border is a log cabin and is called Poker Creek AK, the northern most land border, while the Canadian building is a much more practical, but not romantic green corrugated metal.
Weather! This is the farthest north we’ve gone so far, with the hottest weather. It was 80 yesterday - and 40 this morning.
We’re trapped in no man’s land, having passed the Canadian customs inspection with few questions and no problems. He asked if we had weapons and we said, “No, but we do have bear spray.” He replied, “That’s highly recommended.” He was the sole Canadian on duty, and had to let us in and let us out, then open the gate for the oncoming traffic from Canada into the US. First vehicle coming is a huge double-rig fuel truck - glad we didn’t meet him on the Alaska side.
The Canadian side is paved and much better, but the drop off the right side (MY SIDE!) of the road is terrifying. Tom’s in tow-haul and first gear. The first portion of the Canadian side is paved and pretty good, then it turns into kind-of-paved with gravel on top. Since it’s dry, we could see people coming for miles and estimate their size and speed by the size of the dust cloud. We ALWAYS pulled over and stopped for big stuff to avoid broken windows. We really enjoyed it and it’s very beautiful, but maybe we should have seen all this on the way INTO Alaska, because we saw other sights just as breathtaking in AK.
There is SO much bad information out there on the internet and between drivers, and it seems to depend on the type of rig they’re driving. People in motor coaches seem to be much more timid, with an attitude that says, it was terrifying and horrible, but I DID IT! The truth is that the roads are no worse than in the rural areas of the lower 48 and the Top of the World Highway had fewer potholes than the District of Columbia used to have.
We reached Dawson City, the old gold mining capital, by the route means (still) across the Yukon River: a free ferry. The Yukon is huge and fast, and must have been very intimidating to the miners who came over a hundred years ago. We noticed that the ferry captain had to maintain a sharp ferry angle as he headed across the river. Sometimes the wait is hours (the ride is about 10 minutes), but since we were the first ones down the road this morning, we waited about 5 minutes for the ferry to arrive. It’s cool: the ferry can hold one semi-trailer and a few cars. It has front and rear ramps that lower like a landing craft, and you drive off onto the dirt streets of Dawson City. We’re back in the Yukon.
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