Month: June 2017

Shortly after leaving this morning we arrived in the small community of Chicken, AK. Early miners wanted to name this community after the bird, Ptarmigan, but settled on the common name instead Chicken because it was easier to spell! There is no city water, sewer or electric service here, despite being right on the highway, so it is a challenge to provide services to the growing numbers of tourists travelling through. An original gold town, gold pans are available to use from most businesses for just a deposit which is returned when you return the pan.

We passed through the town of Tok, but first stopped at Fast Eddies Restaurant to have a great burger and fries – and reasonably priced too. We decided we would carry on to Delta Junction for the night, having located a Boondocker that had offered their property to camp on. Delta Junction is the end of the Alaska or Alcan Highway. A trip to the visitor centre in town netted us an official certificate saying we had travelled the Alaska Highway.

We enjoyed our overnight stop on a farm property just outside of Delta Junction. We shared a rhubarb pie that Joyce made, having picked up fresh rhubarb at the farmer’s market in Delta Junction as we passed through. It was a nice visit and felt welcome in their home. They will be retired and are looking to buy a RV, but are deciding on the type. They were interested in hearing our opinion of why a fifth wheel.

Tomorrow we head out to Fairbanks where we will spend the next week.

Why would we want to drive up an extra 65 miles along a gravel road, around blind corners, with soft shoulders and where our speed likely wouldn’t exceed 35 km/hr.? To take a trip to a small community of Eagle, population of 86, of course!

Once again, we had a nice day. The weather the past week or so has run in the low-mid 20’s and mostly sunny. We had notes in our itinerary that this wasn’t a trip to make if there had been a lot of rain. However, rain is one thing they don’t seem to be getting a lot of this year thus far. This road was definitely more narrow and not for trailers. Joyce commented the initial 10 miles were actually very tame and certainly no worse than the Top of the Road Highway. We saw a number of places where we could have pulled the trailer to and then unhooked it and camped for the night instead of at the mosquito-laden campground we chose. However, not having been there, we had no idea how the road conditions would be. As we drove further along, the road narrowed and the hair bend curves increased. We did see a female moose and her two calves as we came around one corner, but that was the extent of the big wildlife.

Arriving in Eagle, we parked the truck at the shore of the Yukon River and ate our lunch. It was a lovely spot but hard to think of people living here year-round. There is no cell reception here, but the residents do have internet access at the library that is broadcast all the time – whether the library is open or not, since it is run by volunteers. We observed a number of people pulling up to the library, taking 5 minutes where we suspect they were accessing their email and then leaving again. While we were there, we also saw a small airplane land on the grass runway in the village.

Tomorrow, first it was Eagle, now Chicken – what funny names for villages….