North to Alaska: Day 36

Welcome! Day 36 (Sept 13) of North to Alaska

Quote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Today is “Top of the World” day. We travelled to Dawson City a place you must plan to go to since, it is not on the way to anywhere, no just dropping by. From Alaska there are two routes to Dawson City, Yukon. One is taking the Alaskan Highway back to Whitehorse and then heading north on the Klondike Highway. This is the long way but you have paved roads all the way and from October thru May it is the only way by road to get to Dawson City. The other is to take the Top of the World Highway from the Alaskan Highway just south of Tok. This way is much shorter about 165 miles with the first 60 miles paved and the next 40 in good condition. Once you get close to the border the road worsens. Once you reach the border crossing (only open from 7 AM till 8 PM) the road does not get better until you are in sight of Dawson City. Guess which way we went. Yes straight over the top.

Now for a few highlights along the way. We ate breakfast about 8:30. It was pancakes and it was very good, included with room rate. With some construction delays and some rough road it took about 3 hours to get to Tok. Where we had lunch at Fast Eddies. Still a good fast place. We then headed toward our cutoff to Dawson City. We stopped one time to take a few pictures of the trees. Fall colors are in full bloom. Very little red but a lot of yellow with some light green. Then on to Chicken, Alaska, yes a town called Chicken. (At the bottom of this blog I will detail how Chicken got its name.) Not much there but more than I thought. A couple of stores two gas stations, one with diesel, no gas, the other keeps his pumps locked. But even at 4.80 per gallon gas is cheaper here than in Dawson City. So I filled up although I had plenty to get to Dawson City. We had left our pavement behind about 10 miles before Chicken. I had to slow to between 40 and 45 mph but encounter few problems. Other than construction workers I only saw one pickup and he was stopped at the other end of a one way construction traffic flow. So we made the border crossing OK. No problems getting across just answering a few questions, yes sir, no sir, I never mess with people who can keep me from moving. Seemingly the road became narrower and a little less maintained. I told Cassie the road reminded me of Highway 7 in NW Arkansas and the road up Pikes Peak. She agreed thinking about her white knuckle ride up Pikes Peak. Not as curvy as Highway 7 nor as steep as Pikes Peak but curvy enough and high enough with steep drop offs on one side or the other. It seemed we rode on the rim for most of the way. We would go down a little and up a lot. We went around curves with no idea if that one other person who might be on the road was just around the corner. I hugged the inside if possible and did not drift too far right of center for the left-handed curves. I travelled between 30 and 35 for most of the trip across the peaks until we reached Dawson City. We did make it.

I do not have the words to describe the views we saw. The sky was clear and I felt I was on Top of the World.

Chicken, Alaska

After the strike of gold in 1886, this small community nestled in the heart of the 40-Mile country began to grow in leaps and bounds. By 1903, this once empty corner of Alaska touted a population of close to 400. And with the growth came the need for identity. The prospectors, miners and natives collectively decided to call their budding community Ptarmigan, after the succulent bird that often donned their dinner plate. However, none of the grizzly group knew how to spell it, so someone supposedly said “Aw hell, let’s just call it Chicken”. And so it stuck.