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Dawson City Ferry runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week except for Wednesday when it closes for maintenance from 5 to 7 am. We didn’t arrive until shortly after 7 am and we were on the second ferry out. Going west from Dawson this ferry provides free service to West Dawson and the US via the “Top of the World Highway.” In Canada the road is mostly paved, but with a lot of gravel breaks. The views from the top of the world were consistently spectacular.
Customs was unusual. It was on a dirt road, one lane each direction with a metal building in the middle and two log cabins off to our right. The border is open for 12 hours a day from 8 am until 8 pm Alaska Time. We gained another hour as we crossed the border. If you arrive during the night you must wait right there on the road until customs opens. There is no place for you to go, up here in the middle of nowhere, you just wait right there in the road.
This is a very desolate and lonely highway, you literally feel like you are all alone on
the top of the world. In the hundred mile stretch between Dawson and Chicken, we only passed 6 vehicles heading in the other direction. Two of these vehicles were buses carrying cruise line passengers to Dawson City. We were also passed on a very narrow dirt road by a tour bus heading in our direction toward Chicken. To have these buses on this narrow dirt roads is absurd, especially when they are trying to keep a time table and take chances they need not take.
We had chicken soup and a half of a turkey sandwich for lunch in Chicken, Alaska. We took our friends, Dee and Trish’s advice and made this a stop on our trip. Chicken was originally to be call Ptarmigan, but nobody knew how to spell it so they called in Chicken instead, because ptarmigans look a lot like chickens. If you get a chance, Google - Chicken, Alaska and get their web page, it is really cute.
Snowshoe rabbits, 7 live ones and 2 dead ones was the only wildlife we saw all day. We continued down the Klondike Trail through more beautiful mountain scenery, glancing at the Alaska Range off to our
right for many miles. Arriving in Tok, we were thrilled to pay only $4.23 per gallon for gas. I could have kissed the soil we walked on, it was so good to back in the USA. At the grocery store we ran into Pete and Carolyn from New Hampshire and chatted with them for a while. At the Liquor Store, Dave, the old crow bought some Old Crow and I finally bought my first box of wine since we left home. I wasn’t going to pay the Canadian prices, which is four times higher than at home.
We continued on the Alaska Highway out of Tok towards Delta Junction, which is where the Alaska Highway ends. We got some cute photo shots at the visitor’s center. They have mosquitoes there that are as big as a moose. Smith’s Green Acres RV Park became our home for the night. They had a problem with frozen pipes and the bathroom and showers were out of service. Joe gave us a great price to stay for the night and then worked all night to get the pipes fixed.
Snuggling in our tent, with the electric heater going and watching a movie
is how we ended our day. We put up our black-out curtains to keep the direct sunlight off us for the night. We are getting used to going to bed with the sun still very high in the sky.
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