June 2, 2015

Last night was our coldest night on the road. It was 39 when we got up this morning but it was sunny and beautiful. After breakfast, we continued along the Taylor Highway to the mining town of Chicken, Alaska. It is said the founders wanted to name it ptarmigan but no one could spell the word so they called it Chicken, the nickname for ptarmigan. It has 30 full time residents, climbs to 50 during the summer. The highway is closed all winter. Mail is flown in twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. There is a gold mining dredge here, an RV park and 2 cafes, 2 tourist shops, and one saloon. The kids are home schooled. I guarantee their blue berry scones are outstanding.

We wandered on down the highway and rejoined the Alaskan Highway at Tetlin Junction. We are staying the night at the Sourdough Campground in Tok, Alaska. Here I should be able to update the blog and get back online a little while.

Views from Chicken, Alaska.

The Saloon.

June 1, 2015, Monday

We started the day with the walking tour of the town. This begins at Judge Wickersham’s Court House at 9 a.m. and you better be on time! Our tour guide was John. He and his wife, Betty, have lived in Eagle since 1968 when they moved here from Wisconsin. They are two of the longest residents of town. I am not sure how long the walking tour is supposed to last but John spent three wonderful hours with us. He shared great stories .of the area, his personal adventures and oddities about the area. The Historical Society of Eagle has done a fantastic job of preserving historical artifacts from the area. They have restored several buildings at Fort Egbert and filled the space with artifacts and photographs from the early days of the town and the Fort.

In May of 2009, Eagle had an ice jam on the Yukon which sent water and huge chunks of ice into the town. Several buildings were destroyed completely. This summer, a new motel, restaurant and grocery store complex will open in town. It should be very nice. And they do get visitors year round. A famous dog sled race goes right through town in the middle of winter. Years ago a tour boat would come to town from Dawson City. I hope someday that trip could be restored. I cannot imagine anything more fun than taking a boat on the Yukon River to this delightful little town.

Tonight we are camped along the Walker Fork of the Fortymile River. Our weather luck has taken a turn toward cooler, rainy weather. If it wasn’t so cold, we take a try at panning for gold. There are no claims for 500 yards along the river here and it is open to people wanting to pan a little gold for fun.

A Jefferies Truck once hauled water at the Fort and in Eagle.

May 31, 2015, Sunday

The free ferry carried us across the Yukon River from Dawson City to the Top of the World Highway. You really do feel on top of the world as the road meanders along a mountain ridge giving views that are jaw dropping. You can see for miles and miles in every direction. It was a short drive to the Canada/Alaska border crossing at Poker Creek, population 3. And ta da, we were in Alaska with a cute caribou stamped on our passport! Less than a mile away was a pull out with the official welcome to Alaska sign and beautiful views.

Our next stop was Eagle, Alaska north along the Taylor Highway. Eagle was another Klondike Gold Rush town. Today its population is about 100 but in its heyday 1700 people inhabited this town on the Yukon River. It is almost totally isolated in the winter as the roads in are closed and the river freezes solid only the air field is available for bringing supplies to town. The Taylor Highway coming into Eagle is narrow and winding with dramatic drop offs and single lane sections, however the trip into to this wonderful little town is well worth it.

Besides touring the town, there are the remains of Fort Egbert to see. The fort was established to aid in getting telegraph expanded across Alaska. Once wireless telegraph replaced the land lines in 1911, the fort was abandoned. One last interesting fact about Eagle. On December 5, 1905, the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen mushed his team of dogs into town after crossing 1000 miles from the location of his ice-bound sloop on the Alaskan Arctic coast. His first action was to use Fort Egbert’s telegraph to send a message to Norway that he had successfully completed the Northwest Passage. He was so delighted with Eagle, he remained in town for two months. 

We are camped at the BLM Eagle Campground. It is nice, quiet, empty and within walking distance of town. Tomorrow we will take the tour of town provided by the historical society which should be very interesting.

May 30, 2015, Saturday

Today we did some exploring around Dawson City. First we took a small section of the Klondike Loop which goes up Bonanza Creek then Eldorado Creek following the path of the richest gold strikes in the area. Several of the big mining dredges are still in place though none have operated for many years. Dredge #4 is now a historical site. We took many photos of the dredge but the site was not open for tours. We are a little early for the regular tourist season. Added bonus was a big raven nest on the discharge conveyor boom. This dredge was in operation 24 hours a day for 240 days a year. Each dredge bucket weighed 4,600 pounds full of gravel.

Mining operations are still underway in this drainage as well as in the Klondike River drainage. The lure of gold continues. Next we drove to the summit of Midnight Dome. What a view! From this elevated point, you can see literally for miles. It has the perfect view of Dawson City, the dredge tailing piles in the Klondike drainage, the Klondike Rive and the Yukon River. If you look north, there are the Ogilvie Mountains where the Tombstone Territorial Park is.

We played tourist today visiting many shops along the riverfront. The little grocery store is surprisingly well stocked. Robert Service’s cabin and Jack London’s cabin were a short hike through town. Tomorrow we will be in Alaska! Our route to the Top of the World Highway begins with a free ferry trip across the Yukon River. Next stop Eagle, Alaska!

May 29, 2015

We awoke to rain once again and the skies remained gray until about 11 a.m. then the sun broke through and it became quite warm.  Engineer Creek Campground was a little marshy and had many mosquitos, our first so far. We still aren’t sure which repellant works the best but we tried Avon Skin So Soft and Avon Bug Repellant. Both worked but the Skin So Soft needed to be reapplied frequently.

Sapper Hill rose about our campsite. Sapper is military slang for combat engineer so both the hill and the river were named for the Royal Canadian Engineers, who built a bridge over nearby Ogilvie River as a field exercise. Sapper Hill, a tor, indicates that it was never covered with ice during the last ice age.

Snowshoe hares were abundant around the campground. They are still growing in their brown summer coats and were quite splotchy. They certainly have enormous feet. They also seem to munch on aspen bark. Many of the saplings had gnaw marks. In fact, you could tell how deep the winter snow got by how high on the tree their gnaw marks were.

We finally saw a moose and her yearling calf as we passed Tombstone Territorial Park. Both were shaggy with winter hair. And boy, do they have long legs. We noticed that the animals on the less traveled roads are much more wary than those along the highways. When you stop the vehicle to photograph them, they move off. Along the highway, the animals ignored the people with cameras!

Tonight and tomorrow night we will be in Dawson City. It is a cute little town really trying to preserve their gold rush heritage. The museum is a wonderful collection of photographs and artifacts of the Klondike gold rush. This is where Robert Service wrote many of his poems about the Yukon and the gold rush. He was a favorite of my father’s so I even brought with me the volumes inherited from my dad. It is like traveling to Mecca in a way. Jack London also wrote here in Dawson City. We can visit both of their cabins tomorrow.

It was my hope to post these additions to the blog while here in Dawson City. The RV park advertises free wifi but no uploads and no downloads are allowed. So I will connect when I can.

Here is the #4 Dredge on the Eldorado Creek near Dawson City and a view from the top of Midnight Dome which gives the best view of Dawson City and the Yukon River.

May 28, 2015

By leaving Tombstone Territorial Park early this morning for our trip to the Arctic Circle, we had hope to see and photograph many animals. Once again, we came away empty…well, not quite. I did take a few photos of ptarmigans who were in their “between seasons” feathers and Jerry got photos of a very nervous black bear.

The main valley running north from the park campground is Blackstone. It is lovely tundra with streams and small lakes, many of which were still covered with ice. The main river, the Blackstone, had enormous fields of ice which were from 2 to 4 feet thick. One of the lakes we stopped at is called Two Moose. While neither moose showed, we did see a variety of water fowl and a river otter.

A fox teased us with a quick dart across the road before vanishing in the scrubby growth along the river and a bald eagle was kind enough to lead us down the road but did not hang around long enough for good photos. The arctic squirrels are cute, miniature prairie dogs in appearance and the red squirrels are very small but vividly colored.

About half the trip to the Arctic Circle from the Tombstones Park, is gorgeous. The road winds through alpine terrain following rapid streams. The mountains are steep and tortured, some volcanic, some sedimentary, all very rugged. We spotted two Dall ewes high on a cliff face. This section of the drive holds many “oh wow” moments. The second half of the drive climbs to a plateau covered in permafrost stunted black spruce and road meanders along this plateau all the way to the Arctic Circle. Many areas show the ravages of wild fires with the spruce skeletons standing like some monstrous grass fronds for miles and miles. In fact a wild fire was burning quite close to Eagle Plains, our fuel and lunch stop. We had planned to camp for the night here as well but the smoke was too thick and the fire was too close for comfort. Tonight, we camped in Engineer Creek Campground. It has a great view of Sapper Mountain, one of those contorted mountains I mentioned earlier. Tomorrow we will drive to Dawson City.

I do believe that Dempster Highway is a great road and kept well maintained. When we read about it before arriving in the Yukon, we were expecting a rough, gravel road like we have in Big Bend Ranch State Park, slow going at best. Instead, all the gravel roads have supported speeds 90 km or 55 mph.

 Forest fire near Eagle Plains and here we are at the Arctic Circle.

May 27, 2015 Wednesday

Today was our first gray day. Clouds spilled over the rim of the Pelly Mountains and raindrops fell on our heads but not hard enough to free the truck from its “chocolate coat”. We were amazed by how big the Little Salmon Lake is. I bet we drove at least 45 minutes to an hour beside the lake before finally reaching the end! Yukon’s motto, Larger than Life, is certainly true. Everything may seem bigger in Texas but that is because the Texans have never been to the Yukon Territory! They truly have big water here and lots of it. And I am totally in love with the Yukon Territory.

Before long we were driving beside the Yukon River which is huge and wild. We stopped at the site of the Columbian disaster in 1906. The Columbian was a river boat that supplied mining companies with blasting powder. They were headed up river fully loaded when someone spotted ducks. A crew member grabbed his rifle and ran toward the bow to take a shot at the birds. He tripped and fell discharging his rifle into a powder keg. This caused an explosion that destroyed the bow of the boat. A quick thinking captain beached the boat and men jumped off to go for help to the Tantalus Mine. By the time they returned with a rescue party the boat was gone and 6 crewmen including the shooter were dead.

At Carmacks, we crossed the Tage Cho, which means Big River or the Yukon. We refueled in Carmacks where people commented on our accents. It is very amusing to be the ones with accents. After refueling, we crossed the Yukon again and headed up the Klondike Highway toward Dawson City. Still paralleling the Yukon, we stopped to see Five Finger Rapids. Now the river is quite full due to the Spring run off so we were not able to really appreciate how wicked these rapids were for the riverboats. The rapids were dramatic enough to please us. Riverboats ran the Yukon until 1955 when the highways were finished.

Pelly Crossing is not just a bridge across the Pelly River but is also a First Nation community. There is a wonderful lookout point on the hillside above town. When we arrived there, another couple was taking in the sights. A dog wandered around them so we assumed it was their dog and petted it. They got in their vehicle and drove off leaving the dog. Now we were unsure what was going on but the dog seemed perfectly content to remain where he was so we decided he must be the greeting committee.

Now we were anxious to see if the fuel station at the junction with the Dempster Highway had been rebuilt after a fire two years ago. If it had been, we would head up the Dempster Highway to the Arctic Circle; if it hadn’t we would go to Dawson City first then backtrack to the Dempster Highway. Luckily the station, (well it was simply a fuel stop, no attendant) had been rebuilt. After having to watch a lesson in how to fuel a vehicle, what to do in case of fire, how to treat a person with burns, how to shut off the pumps, etc. we were finally able to get fuel.

Tonight we are in the Tombstones Territorial Park Campground. You feel like you should be at 11,000 feet surrounded by barren peaks but you are only at 2800 feet and the barren peaks are only 5000-6000 feet high. Latitude certainly makes a difference. Tomorrow we will go to the Arctic Circle!

Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon