Travels of Geo Nova: Into Alaska

Our next destination is Dawson City, the 2nd largest city in the Yukon. Population 2000 in the simmer, winter it dwindles to 600 hardy souls. Dawson City sits on the banks of the Klondike River. This area was the epicenter of the gold rush of 1898. The trip to Dawson City from Whitehouse is sufficiently long to necessitate a stop along the way. We spent one night in Carmack Yukon, named after the first person to strike gold in Bonanza Creek close to Dawson City. Dawson City has the feel of an old time town. There is only one paved street in town and the side walks are elevated boardwalks. Parks Canada has done a superb job of restoring a number of older buildings. We went on a walking tour of the town and into several of the old buildings. In its hay day Dawson City had a population of 30,000 people making it the largest city north of San Francisco. Initially the prospectors worked with pick ax and shovel but it didn’t take long before large mechanized mining operations were the norm. We visited dredge number 4 that was put in operation in 1914 and continued until 1966. This is a very large machine that floats in a pool of water. It digs up everything in its path down to bedrock. As it digs in the front the rocks are washed and tumbled inside using the pool of water it is floating in. The flecks of Gold fall to the bottom because they are heavier, it then spits out all the rocks in the rear thus moving slowly forward in its self contained pool. Upon entering town we saw piles of rocks that stretched on for miles. These were tailings from this operation.

The Alaska portion of our adventure starts with crossing the Klondike River on a small ferry that can only hold 2 trailers at one time. The road to Chicken Alaska is known as the Top of the World Highway. It is not what most people would call a highway. It is a gravel road of about 100 miles that corses over the mountains offering grand views of the surrounding landscape. Chicken has a summer population of 23 and a winter population of 6. It received it’s name when a bunch of the original settlers were sitting around trying to come up with a name for their new community. The area was home to a sizable population of Ptarmigans, a chicken like grouse bird. The people couldn’t spell Ptarmigan so the decided to call their new town Chicken. This area was originally settled by prospectors in the Alaska Gold Rush of the ladder 19th century. In fact at that time the population of Chicken was much larger.

Eagle is a small town on the Klondike River that is about 90 miles from Chicken. The only way to get there other than by bush plane or boat is a 90 mile gravel road that is only one lane wide in places. It winds up and through the mountains and offers hair pin turns, 2000 foot drop offs and no guard rales. They have their own diesel electric generator. A visit to this town is like stepping back in time. Several of us made the trip up there and had a guided tour of the town after eating lunch at the towns only restaurant.

Next stop Delta Junction, the official end if the Alcan Highway. There is not a lot to see here. In fact we stopped at the local visitors center and asked what we should see while in Delta Junction and there was a long period of silence after which the attendant said there wasn’t much to see! We did I visit Rikas Road house and had a nice breakfast there. It is located in a State Historic Park. This site has served many functions in the past. It served as one of the original telegraph stations connecting Alaska to the lower 48. After that the Road House started providing lodging and food for the adventurous travelers of the early 20th century. It also serve as an Army base during the construction of the Alcan Highway.

Later in the afternoon the owner of our campground brought us back into the woods, about 4 miles from the campground, to harvest Diamond Willow sticks to make into walking sticks. I managed to get 5 sticks and have started to prepare them by stripping the bark off.

The next day we set off to Fairbanks.