1997 Alaska, British Columbia & Yukon Trip
Tuesday 7/29
Day 5: Dawson , Top-of-the-World & Chicken
We woke up at 4:30 a.m. and it looked like it would be a nice day, just a couple clouds.
We drove north and arrived at Whitehorse at 6:30. We could not find any gas
stations open as there were three Chevron stations still closed. Although I still
had a 7 gallon gas can filled, I was always looking for gas after I had half a tank
and always making sure that I was a stopping at night with almost a full tank
because there isn’t much open at 5:00 a.m. to find gas. We decided to continue north in Yukon on the
Klondike highway to Dawson rather than Haines. This was the most secluded area I remember traveling
thru.
I saw some goats early in the morning as they were beside the road
looking for food. The
Yukon territroy has a population of 35,000 and 20,000
of those people live in Whitehorse, that tells you how secluded this area is.
I don’t remember passing anybody for the first couple hours and there were
very few houses and hardly any business. I finally stopped for gas at Brauburn
at 8:00 am.
After leaving Brauburn we saw a biker who was sitting along the side of the
road with his bike. I stopped to ask him if he needed a ride or anything. He had already
received help from somebody who was going to fix the flat tire on his
motorcycle. He seemed in a calm mood even for being in the
middle of nowhere. After talking to him I realized he was the person from Denmark
that was visiting Alaska/Yukon by moterbike this summer. Some tourists had told us about him
on our second day of the trip in British Columbia. He said he was having a great trip and we left him there
knowing he had somebody coming back. About sixty minutes later there was a rain storm that lasted for an hour
and then stopped about 50 miles from
Dawson City. The landscape seemed
to change quite often as at first it was all woods and then flat land with
grassy areas where there have been a couple fires in the last 30 years.
We arrive at
Dawson City at 1:00 pm, and it is mainly a tourist oriented town trying to
market the 100th anniversasry of the the Klondike gold rush.
three or four blocks. We went into several shops and ate lunch outside as it
was about 70 degrees. This town looks like it has fun at night and there are many mining tours during the day
but we didn't plan on staying and left after lunch.
We take the ferry across the Yukon river around
4:30, the ferry only carries 6-7 cars at a time.
We started driving the
Top-of-the-World highway which connects
Yukon and Alaska. It is gravel road all the way until you reach Tetlin junction which is
12 miles from Tok. This is a nice trip on a clear day but I would not want to
be on this road in the rain, I also saw about 3-4 people with flat tires and
would recommend new tires to anybody who is thinking about traveling up
north on gravel roads. We finally arrived at a place called Chicken
which has a saloon, cafe, liquor store and general store all run by the same
people. 
The only restrooms in town are two outhouses wallpapered with chicks on it.
I drove in the back of the area where the residents supposably live
but all of the houses are covered with plants and brush. This little town is in the middle of nowhere.
They also have a small landing strip here and have done mining
in this region for severel years. There is a popular book called Tisha that is a true story about a young
indian teacher who comes to teach in this area in the late 1920's that is good reading.
After leaving
Chicken we were going to go to Eagle but it was 130 miles of
gravel road round trip and we still had fond memories of Telegraph Creek so we
decided not to, maybe next time. Instead we took our time leaving this area
and stopped at Jack Wade Dredge which is an old mining building that has
not been used for years. Jacob enjoyed this place, we were able to go into
the old building and see how the mining was set up to produce.
We finally arrived in Tok
for dinner and ate at Fast Eddy’s. We then drove west for about 2 hours and at 11:00 p.m. and set
up tents on a rocky road off the highway
past the Delta Junction. It was still light out and nice weather as
it never really got dark up this far north. We finally went to sleep around 12:00. I drove 650 miles
today and 2750 total in five days.