My Trails

Storyboard

The campground north of Chicken was completely full by dinner time. I guess it was because I left Dawson so early is why I beat everyone there. Just as I was eating dinner two pickups came in, one pulling the other. I later found out that a young couple had broken the universal joint on their truck just two miles back and a good samaritan had towed them in. The camp host had a satellite phone and called for a tow truck out of Tok. I talked with them later and we both agreed it was a good thing it didn’t happen on the Top Of The World Highway.

That’s the chance you take out here with no cell service. By the time someone comes along and finds you broke down by the road and goes for help, it can be a long wait. I shudder to think how much it would cost to tow a motorhome from the Top of the World Highway, 100 miles to Tok.

The road from the campground to Tok was full of dips and humps but at least it was paved. I only averaged about 40 or 45 mph down to where the Taylor Highway joins back up with the Alaskan Highway. From there it was better road for the last 12 miles to Tok.

If you are driving into or out of Alaska, you go through Tok. I think they know that at the grocery store. The prices were higher than they were in Dawson, and you don’t get any discount with the money like the Canadians give you. I did laundry, filled with gas (gas prices are better here than Dawson), and used a coin carwash to blast some of the mud from Minnie and Honda.

I was thinking of staying in town. I checked the prices for an RV park and found out it would be $55 for the night. The Chevron station lets you park out back for free if you fill up with gas. I didn’t really feel like handing over $50 or parking behind the gas station among the junk cars so I headed out of town to find a parking area.

I found a large gravel parking area near Dot Lake. It is about 60 miles south of Delta Junction, the end of the Alaskan Highway. I have a tiny bit of 1X signal so I may be able to post this but not put up any pictures.

Looks like I’m in for a storm tonight. The Weather Channel just posted warnings for heavy rain and hail in this area. How big of a hail stone will a solar panel survive?

Crossing the Yukon River

The line waiting for the ferry to cross the Yukon River can be more than two blocks long. If you wait in that line it may take you several hours before they load you for the trip to the other side. I decided to get up early and board the ferry before the big crowds. I figured that not only would I skip the wait but it would put me out ahead of traffic on the Top Of The World Highway. I set my alarm for 5:30am.

It was hard getting up at 5:30am. It has been quite some time since I’ve had to get up than early, and with the days so long and bright up here, I have become something of a night owl, staying up until midnight or later, and sleeping in till 8 or so. I almost couldn’t force myself to wake up, but the alternative thought of waiting in line spurred me out of bed.

I hit the ferry a little after 6:00 and boarded almost immediately. The road from Dawson to the border of Alaska was dirt but fairly smooth and wide. There were many places along the road where RVs had camped for the night and most of the travelers were still sleeping as I drove past. I took my time and stopped to make breakfast at one nice pullout above treeline. There was no hurry to get to the border crossing because they didn’t open until 8:00.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I kept thinking as I drove this highway through the Northwest Wilderness how big this land is and how small I am. When I hiked the AT there were times at the top of a mountain where you could see for miles and miles of nothing but forest, but you new that out there were roads and towns and eventually civilization. Up here, the forests are wild and immense and void of any human impact. There are things out there that could eat you! When Alaskan bush pilots went down in this area they were in for a struggle to survive.

I reached the US border about 20 minutes before they opened. There were already two cars in line that were earlier than me. They let me back in after making sure I wasn’t bring in any elk antlers. I assured her I wasn’t. The road was paved and new for about two miles and then it got bad.

I had read in the Milepost and also on Richards blog about the narrow, winding road from the border to Chicken, Alaska so I was pretty well prepared for it. A lot of the road runs along the side of a mountain with 1000 foot dropoffs and no guardrails. And on top of that, the road is too narrow for two big rigs to pass each other without moving way out on a soft shoulder. I took it slow and easy and had no problems.

The last two miles driving into Chicken and five miles beyond were under construction and very rough. It looked like they had dumped dirt in the road and not even leveled it out. I was driving over piles of dirt coming down the last mile into town. The construction north of Chicken was the kind where you wait a half-hour for the pilot car to return.

Chickin

Chicken, AK is a tiny mining town in the middle of nowhere. The story is that the miners wanted to name the town ptarmigan but none could spell it. That’s my type of guy – I have trouble spelling chickin! The town survives by catering to tourists staying in the RV park, browsing the mining artifacts, and eating in the diners. I saw an advertisement for chicken pot pie but the cafe I stopped at didn’t serve it so I had a turkey sandwich.

I drove twenty miles north of Chicken and spent the night at a BLM campground called West Fork Campground. I was the only one there for a while but then the sites filled up later in the day as more people came across the Top of the World Highway from Dawson. I have no cell so I will wait till tomorrow when I get to Tok to post this.

Diamond Tooth Gertie Show

The one show everyone talks about when visiting Dawson is the stage production at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Casino and Dance Hall. There are three shows nightly, and I decided to go to one of the later ones in hopes of avoiding the crowds. I found out that it doesn’t matter when you go because it is always packed.

The building where they have the dancing girls is full of tables stretching back from the stage with slot machines and gambling tables around the outside edges. Of course there is a long bar pouring drinks and waitresses roaming the floor keeping your glass full. The place was packed when I got there, but I asked a couple if I could sit at their table for the show. They were accommodating and we enjoyed good conversation before the show started.

The girls were good dancers and good singers. The act consisted of a story about a miner that had struck it rich in the goldfields and how all the girls played up to him for his gold. The two stars of the show were the head dance hall girl and Charlie, the rich miner. They did several duets together that were really good. It was a fun show, but of course one of the highlights of the show was when the girls pulled four men from the audience, put dresses on them, and made them do a cancan dance.

Midnight Sun

After the show ended I decided to ride up to Dome Rock – a twisting road that climbs high above Dawson – to watch the midnight sun. The sky was clear so I figured it would be a good time to go. The official town celebration is on the 21st of June but the forecast for the next night was cloudy and possible rain.

When I arrived at the top there were already many people there. Some were waiting for the sun to go down at 12:45 while others were in for the long haul and we’re waiting till it came back from behind the mountain a couple hours later. I stayed until I could get a picture of the midnight sun, then headed down the mountain with most other people.

Train Museum

Today was spent seeing a few places around town that I had missed. I walked to the museum and browsed there for a while, made a quick visit to Jack London’s and Robert Service’s Cabins, and then did the tour of the Keno Riverboat. I should have enough gold rush and early Dawson history to last me for quite some time.

Yukon riverboat Keno

This afternoon I loaded my motorcycle, took Minnie to get her tanks emptied and filled, and settled in to watch a storm pass through. My plan is to get an early start tomorrow and maybe get ahead of the long line waiting for the ferry. I have been staying up so late that it may be hard to wake up early.

Tour at the saloon

Belinda Mullvaney

This morning I walked down to the visitors center just in time to take the walking tour of Dawson. It was quite interesting and fun. The guide took us to different places and told us some history of the building, then this lady dressed up in 1890’s clothes came out and pretended she was telling the story of the original time. She was supposed to be Belinda Mullvaney, an early female entrepreneur that became wealthy building boarding houses and other establishments in and around Dawson. We found out eventually that the gal dressed up for the part has really lived here for 30 years.

After the tour, which lasted until noon, I rode back up Bonanza Creek to check out the places I missed yesterday because of rain. The Discovery Claim National Historic Site, place of the original gold discovery in 1896 that sparked the Klondike Gold Rush, was nothing more than a small path down to the creek with a few plaques to tell about the men and what happened.

Then I drove on up the road a way where you can pan for gold for free. This is the only place on the stream that is not a private claim. There were several people down in the creek trying their luck at finding a flake of gold. After years of miners digging up the dirt in the 1890’s, and maybe four dredges that had chewed through the valley, there is probably not much left for the recreational panner. But they never get it all and new flakes get washed down every year. Do you think I took my gold pan down to the stream?

Yukon River

The sky was starting to look like rain again and the mosquitos were biting like mad at the creek, so I headed back to town with only one little flake of gold. Important: Always take DEET when you are in nature up here!

I bought a loaf of bread, some cookies, and a pound of hamburger at the local market that came to $20.50. I’m trying to eat up some of my provisions – pushed to the back of my cupboard – instead of buying much up here. Before I made my hamburger for dinner, I took a walk along the Yukon Riverbank and read more plaques about the traffic to and from Dawson in the early
days.

Loading the ferry

Tonight I have a plan to go to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall. I’m not too sure what to expect but it is one show everyone seems to go to. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. I’m planning on going to the 10 pm show to miss the crowds at 8:30. I sure hope they don’t try to pull me up on stage – I would never go to a show that would have me in the act!

Dredge #4

I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want them to worry, but Minnie did not want to start well after I left Whitehorse. Two times when I stopped at roadside historical areas, Minnie cranked for several seconds before starting. The last hundred miles to Mayo were made without turning the engine off.

All last week I worried that Minnie would not start this morning. I resisted the urge to start the engine before I left in case it was the last time it would start. I knew the closest place to get mechanical work done would be in Dawson. This morning when I had everything packed and ready to go, I turned the key and heard the beautiful sound of a running engine.

I took pictures of signs to read later while Minnie idled.

I left the engine running as I filled with gas outside Mayo and never shut it off till I reached Dawson three hours later. The first RV shop said they were booked up for two weeks but she gave me the name of another mechanic outside town. He ran several diagnosis programs on his code reader and couldn’t find anything wrong. No matter how many times we stopped and started Minnie’s engine, it fired up instantly. He thinks I may have gotten some bad gas in Whitehorse or the gas cap was not put on tight enough. I hope it gets me into Alaska with no more trouble.

Sardines!

Things are expensive here in Dawson City. I checked into a RV park called the Gold Rush Campground RV Park. It is like a parking lot with rigs packed in like sardines, and they want a lot of gold from my pocket just to park here. At least it is close to town and all the tourist things required of everyone that visits.

Nugget passed around on dredge tour.

After I parked and unloaded Honda, I decided to drive up Bonanza Creek and check out the historic dredge parked there. The dredge is called Dredge #4 and man is it big. I could write down how many hundreds of thousands of tons it weighs and how many millions of gold it pulled out of the river valley but it’s too much to comprehend. Let’s just say it’s a massive structure and a story all its own. The tour was fun but I got repremanded for asking something about a dredge I had seen on Discovery Channel Gold Rush.

He said. ” That’s not reality! That’s just made up TV!”

After the tour I intended to drive on up to the original Historical Discovery Site, but I was on Honda and the sky was looking like rain. I will have two more days to check out the rest of town. The next move should put me back in the USA.