Monday 8/9/99
Day 12: Chicken & Dawson City
I knew this was going to be a fun day when I went to Chevron early in the morning and saw a line waiting for the mechanic. Chevron had the right size but not a truck tire, only a car tire. He directed me to Northern Energy who didn't have on. I also went to another place before finally ending back at Chevron and buying their 4 ply car tire so I could get going . We didn't get out of Tok until 9:30, after waisting two hours looking around. We were now going to Chicken as Shawna has been waiting all trip for this town. We turned right on the Taylor Highway and passed a display on the right side of the highway that included a toilet, sink, stove, fridge and toy scooter. It was rather amusing but seemed to be in place considering this was Alaska. It also reminded me of the People's Park in Berkelley where there also used to be a toilet sitting there. Aanyhow I couldn't pass this up as I got out of the truck and took a couple pictures.
This road was much better than what I rememberd last time as they have paved a majority of it that was just a dusty gravel road lst time. As we were driving towards Chicken we could see dark clouds off near the Yukon. We reached Chicken around 11:00 and took the kids inside the gift store. We and asked for a tour but the next one would not be until 1:00. We took some pictures nd mailed some postcards and then deciced to leavre. Shawna was pretty upset as she had waited all this time and was not real impressed with what she saw. She did get to use the outhouses that had seats back to back as Cindy and her looked at each other from the toilet seats. Andthat was the highlight of Chicken this year. We left at 11:30 as it was now getting busy with alot of RV's that had just pulled in. I told Cindy lets hurry up and get out of here.
As we left Chicken we passed a dredge on the right side that wasn't here last time. We were told that someone had brough it in on these gravel roads a couple years ago and plans on opening it up to the public in the near future as a tourist sight. This is not the Jack Wade Dredge which is a little farther east up towards Eagle. We all got out and walked around in the rain at the Jack Wade Dredge. Shawna , Jacob and myself went inside as you have to be very careful where you walk at. It's only been two years since we were last here, but the wood looks so much rotted out. The dredge was left near the water as there are also convery belts and other large accessories sitting around the area.
We left here and next would start towards Eagle. We turned off to go north and drove about a mile before we realized that we were up in the clouds and was real foggy. We decided not to continue and this would be the second time in two years up here now that we had skipped Eagle for whatever reason. We drove past the Alaksa/Yukon border and hit fog and rain. The road was better at least as it was a newer pavement and smoother. After a couple miles we could smell smoke and it was getting hazy. It got worse as we got closer to Dawson. We had to stop for the ferry crossing to Dawson where I asked where the fire was and she replied 'which one'. While we hadve been in fog and rain teh last four day they have had nice weather until yesterday.
We got on the first ferry at 3:00 Alaska or 4:00 Yukon time. The ferry is free and only holds about 6 vehicles. The Yukon isn't a very pretty river. The glacier silt gives it a dirt brown color. The streets of Dawson are not paved and have boardwalks on each side. One can only imagine what it must look like when the snow finally melts around ???. The town of Dawson is several blocks of dirt streets, in a flat valley, easily negotiable on foot. The buildings all look like they came straight out of the turn of the century. Some of them did, but many are just replicas. We drove around town a little bit and stopped at the Jack London Log Cabin. This cabin was found in ??? in 1965. Half of the original logs were used to make this cabin, with the remaider shipped to Oakland, CA and used to build one there in Jack London Square. We stopped at the Dempster Highway Visitor Center to get information to use in the future about traveling north to the Northwest Territory. Then we walked across the street to the Dawson Visitor's Center. Their staff was very helpful in finding a room for the night. We stayed at the Westmark, the only chain motel in town and probably the largest motel in town. They had a weekend special of $99 Canadian.
We stopped at a Westmark in Tok and they were charging $119 American! After checking in we ate an early dinner at Sammy's Restaurant, which was a pretty casual place with an enclosed outside patio (lots of places in Dawson seemed to have this set up.) They served hamburgers, hotdogs and beer. The owners live on Pender Island (one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver, BC) in the winter. We walked around town until 7:30pm. There seemed to be a lot of older couples out and about. We finally went back to our room and watched a movie until 10 pm. Dale and I went out to find something to eat and drink. The streets were a lot busier with a fast food vendor on every corner. It was still quite light outside. Some older guys were still playing baseball. Most of the restaurants were shut down and bars had quit serving food as well. We stopped at the Midnight Sun which served American-Chinese food but didn't like their selection. We finally found Klondike Kates which was almost ready to close. We were the only ones sitting out on their enclosed patio. Dale celebrated his birthday with frog legs, goat cheese, falafel, a taboulah salad, and a couple drinks. We were stuffed. Afterwards we looked around for a place that might have live music. We waited outside the ??Pink hotel for 10 minutes to listen to one of the worst guatarist we'd ever heard. Luckily he didn't play very long. The crowd was young and rowdy.
250 miles today and 4500 miles total