Tok to Fairbanks

We started our day off with sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausage at the campground café. They were good. It seemed to take a long time to get rolling and we didn’t pull out until 10:45 a.m. It was nice and sunny, and got up to 27 C by the time we stopped for the night in Fairbanks at 7:30 p.m. What a difference good weather makes!

We crossed lots of rivers and saw plenty of lakes and trees today. There were mountains in the distance, too. The Alaska range was most magnificent.

Despite the warm temperatures, there was still ice and snow on the Robertson River when we crossed it (probably because it is fed by the nearby Robertson Glacier). Still, it was a surprise to see.

At Delta Junction, we reached the end of the Alaska highway that started in Dawson Creek, B.C. From Delta Junction we will be on the Richardson highway which was the first highway in the state. It was originally a trail between Valdez on the coast and Fairbanks, then a wagon road and upgraded to automobile standards in the 1920's. Here’s a picture of me pointing to the official marker post for the end of the Alaska Highway.

They had a few other photo spots at the Delta Junction Visitor centre; giant mosquitoes, and a ‘pig’ that is used to clean and check oil pipelines from the inside.

We haven't been bothered by mosquitoes other than the one night at the Moose Creek Campground. Actually they are worse at home!

We paralleled the trans-Alaska pipeline part of the way today. When we crossed the Tanana River, the pipeline crossed the river too - right beside us.

Just before we got to Fairbanks, we took advantage of the opportunity to stop at Santa Claus House at North Pole, Alaska. That was fun! It’s Christmas all year round in North Pole. The store sold every imaginable Christmas doodad. Santa was there, too, and I got to sit on his knee. He suggested good places to eat and stay in Fairbanks.

The highway was fine today, although there were frost heaves in some sections. After posting pictures the last few days of terrible roads, I’ll show you what a good section of the highway in Alaska looks like:

We saw three moose grazing near the highway. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture.

We bought groceries and had supper at North Pole before driving the last 15 miles into Fairbanks. There is going to be lots to do in Fairbanks. We bought an Alaska Tour Saver coupon book which is full of ‘buy one get one free coupons’. It is good for three things we plan to do here and lots more attractions around the state.

Chicken to Tok, Alaska

It rained most of the day today – sometimes quite hard. Beautiful Downtown Chicken looked a little bedraggled, but was still worth stopping at. It consists of a souvenir store, bar and café.

We did some shopping, looked at the bar (famous for its hat collection) and bought a monster cinnamon bun ‘to go’ at the café. It was too dark in the bar to get a great picture, but this one shows some of the hats (and Fran).

Leaving Chicken, there was about five more miles of dirt/mud road before we got to pavement. It was about the worst we’d seen – only one lane in this stretch:

The ‘pavement’ was on again and off again, but still better than the dirt/mud stretches. Once we got to the junction with the Alaska highway, that nice asphalt with lines and shoulders and all looked really nice!

Due to the heavy rain and low clouds, we really couldn’t see anything on the road to Tok so we decided to stay here for the rest of the day and night. We lined up a site at the Sourdough Campground then went back into town to go to the Visitor Centre and check out some of the souvenir shops. The visitor centre here is exceptionally good with information for all parts of Alaska. I came away with a huge bag of stuff to look at.

We went through the big Gift shop across the road then drove a little further to the Burnt Paw Gift Shop. They sell dog team equipment among other things. The shop is owned by a man who competed in the very first Iditarod race (and several subsequent ones, too). He is also a breeder of sled dogs and had one little girl in the pen outside who had been sold but hadn’t gone to her new home yet. We went to see her – she looked lonely but was very cute.

I spotted this unusual street sign in Tok: (how’d you like to live on that street!)

It had quit raining by supper time so we went for a few walks and took part in the campground's sourdough pancake toss. Fran managed to throw his pancake in the bucket and won free breakfast for tomorrow!

We visited around the communal campfire with a bunch of people from a Newmar caravan that had also been in the Dawson City campground with us. Nice folks. One couple has a cairn terrier.

Dawson City, Yukon to Chicken, Alaska

Before we left Dawson this morning, we went to see the oldest hotel, the Westminster, which opened in 1898. My Dad had sent me an email in which he wondered if it is still here. Apparently his cousin Lena used to work in it. It is pink and leaning a bit but still going strong. I took a few pictures before we left town:

It was really cloudy and threatening rain, but we drove up to the top of Midnight Dome Mountain (2,600 ft climb) anyway. Really couldn’t see much, other than clouds, though. The locals had a big party up there last night in celebration of the summer Solstice. Part way down the mountain, I took this picture of the mining operations. There is still quite a bit of gold (placer) mining going on in the area.

So, our next plan was to drive the 40 kms back toward Whitehorse so we could go see Tombstone Territorial Park. From the junction of the Klondike and Dempster highways, it is 70 km north to Tombstone. After having lunch and fueling up at the Klondike River Lodge, we started up the dreaded Dempster. And it was dreadful. All the rain we’ve been having had made a real mess of the road. It is basically packed dirt and it was full of potholes, washboard sections and really soft spots. So after 10 km of being shaken to bits, we turned around and retraced our steps back to Dawson.

The sun was shining by the time we got back to town, but I couldn’t convince Fran to drive up to the top of the Dome again (didn’t try too hard actually). So, we boarded the little ferry and sailed across the very quickly flowing Yukon River. After one more futile trip – this time into the campground on the west side of the river and a walk along the riverbank to see if we could spot the sunken sternwheelers (we couldn’t), we started on the ‘Top of the World’ highway.

The very scenic ‘Top of the World’ highway connects Dawson City, Yukon with the Alaska Highway (175 miles to the West). It is sort of paved to the U.S. border (lots of gravel sections) and it winds along the top of the mountain ridge. After the U.S. border, it’s dirt, mud, etc. Almost as bad as the Dempster. The road is very narrow, rough and the shoulders are very soft so if you meet someone, it’s best to just stop in a slightly wider section and let them by you. There are no guard rails and it climbs up and down and around the mountains. Quite the road! Fran says he won’t drive it again.

This shows some of the Canadian portion of the road:

This shows some of the U.S. portion of the road:

Anyway, by driving 30 – 40 km/hr the whole way, we made it to our destination for the night – Chicken, Alaska. There are three RV parks in Chicken and not much else. The story behind its unique name is that the miners who were the original inhabitants wanted to name the town Ptarmigan in honour of all the little birds that fed them when food was scarce. However, they couldn’t agree on how to spell ‘Ptarmigan’ so settle on Chicken instead.

We are staying at the Chicken Gold Camp. It’s the nicest of the three. About half the guests are transient like us and about half are settled here for a longer stretch of time. The campground includes a gold mine claim and guests are allowed to pan for gold all day long if they want to and some do! We talked to a Swiss couple who are here for six days panning gold. The camp ‘gater’ transports them to the creek at 9:00 a.m. and picks them up at 5:00 p.m. Quite a few people have their own quads to go off prospecting. Not my cup of tea!

We’ll be on our way tomorrow. We are still 66 miles from the Alaska Highway and Tok, AK. Apparently the road turns into sort of pavement again a few miles from here. Travelling by ferry is looking better all the time!

Even more crowded!

We couldn’t believe that the management squeezed three large motorhomes in beside us when we were out sight-seeing today. (The white Embassy on the right is ours.) If the motorhome next to us put their living room slide out, we wouldn’t be able to get out our door! It will be good to get away from this RV park tomorrow.

While it rained most of the afternoon, the morning was pretty nice and we went on the town walking tour. Our tour leader was in period costume and did a very nice job. She was from Quebec originally (everyone here is from somewhere else) and had a very cute way of speaking. She told lots of interesting stories, too.

After lunch we did some souvenir shopping then went to see the Commissioner’s house. It has been restored to the period when the Black’s lived in it. Mr. Black was Commissioner of the Yukon Territory from 1910 – 1914 and Mrs. Black was a very interesting person in her own right.

I was very excited to see the same picture we have hanging in our dining room hanging in the ‘parlor’ of this lovely heritage property.

One of the more interesting pieces in the house was this chair made from moose antlers.

We had supper at Klondike Kate’s restaurant which is a goldrush-era building and one of the better places to eat in town. Our meals were good, but the service wasn’t great.

After loading the bikes on the bike rack, we walked over to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s to watch the 8:30 show.

Dawson City Museum & Diamond Tooth Gerties

It rained steadily all day so we shifted plans and spent most of the day at the Dawson City Museum. It is a wonderful facility chock full of the history of the area. It is located in the building that was originally built to serve as the territorial capital building. Dawson was the capital of the Yukon Territory until 1950 when it was moved to Whitehorse. It was known as the Paris of the North in the early 1900’s and quite a grand place indeed.

This is my favourite piece. It’s a statue of ‘Kleopatra’, made in Germany around 1900.

After supper, we went to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Casino. We took in two floor shows (both excellent) and I played Texas Hold-em for about one hour. It’s the first time I’ve played in a casino and I did really well. $20 minimum buy-in and I walked away with $46. Some people were spending 100’s of dollars, but not me! I was panicky laying my $20 down!

This is a picture of Diamond Tooth Gertie herself when she came down into the audience to sing. We recognized her as one of the performers at the concert we were at on Saturday night. We talked to her and found out she’s from Halifax and this is the fifth year she’s been performing as Gertie in Dawson. She has a wonderful and strong voice.

Writers and Poets

Robert Service, the famous poet (“The Cremation of Sam McGee”, etc.); Jack London, the famous writer (“Call of the Wild”, etc.) and Pierre Berton (a generally famous Canadian) all lived in Dawson at some point in their lives. Service’s and London’s cabins are open to the public while the Berton house has been restored and now houses a “Writer in Residence”.

This picture shows Robert Service’s cabin. He came to Dawson as a bank employee and lived here until 1912. It was made a virtual shrine from shortly after he moved away as his writing were already well-known.

This picture shows Jack London’s cabin. He was among the first stampeders crossing the Chilkoot Pass and on to the Klondike in 1897. However, he didn’t find gold in the ground but in his writings which are based on the stories he absorbed from the people and places he came across in the area. The London cabin is pretty basic and was from way out in the bush into Dawson to be displayed.

Pierre Berton’s family lived in Dawson form 1920 to 1932. Pierre has written many books regarding the Klondike goldrush and life in the Yukon. We were unable to tour the Berton home as it is a private retreat for Canadian writers now.

After seeing the writers and poets homes, we took part in a program put on by Parks Canada called “The Macabre Mystery of the Klondike Killers”. This was an interesting and fun tour around town, going into some of the historic buildings all in the framework of helping a NWMP officer solve a crime.

This picture shows a beautifully restored saloon:

And this is a church built in 1901 that hasn’t been restored. It’s starting to sag, poor thing.

These building have been left to demonstrate what happens when you put a heated building on permafrost without a ‘buffer’ zone. Over time, the permafrost melts and turns to muck and the building caves in. We had noticed most of the buildings are set on skids or cribbing with air circulating under them.

Imagine our surprise when we saw this bus sitting on one of the main streets:

(it’s from Regina and has the “Pats” logo on it!)

This is another shot I was happy to get. We were riding our bikes and heard lots of barking dogs and saw this truck coming by full of sled dogs hanging out their ‘windows’ and making all kinds of noise. I stopped my bike, whipped out the camera – and got the shot!

In talking to a woman who is a competitive sled dog racer (Yukon Quest and Iditarod), we found out that the ‘classic’ huskies and malamutes we see in movies are rarely used in racing. They generally use mixed-breed dogs. Interesting.

It was also Father’s Day today. Fran & I talked to our fathers and he received phone calls from all three kids. I took him out for breakfast and a Chinese Food supper so he had a good day, too.

Dawson City, YT

Unfortunately, sometimes boring things like laundry have to be done! That was this morning, and it did take most of the morning.

Later on, we headed downtown for lunch at Sourdough Joe’s and to browse the shops. Then, a spin around town on our bikes and over to the ferry to watch it load and unload. It’s quite a small ferry so isn’t able to take too many vehicles at a time – especially motorhomes!

Speaking of large RV’s in small spaces – we came back to camp to find they had put two large fifth wheel trailers on either side of us. We can hardly get in and out our door now! This has to be the most crowded RV park we’ve ever stayed in and we wouldn’t be here except it’s the only one right in town and we have to be able to walk or bike everywhere.

Following supper at the Triple J, we went to the live music show put on at the Palace Grand Theatre. This beautiful building has been restored to its former glory by Parks Canada and was being used tonight to showcase some of the local musicians. We were extremely impressed with the performances. They served finger foods and I won a door prize – a gift basket of Epicure products. This event wasn’t a ‘tourist’ one and I think we were the only ones there. Their loss!

This picture of me in front of the Palace Grand Theatre was taken when we came out at 10:30 p.m. It was still sunny and warm! It’s very different and it’s hard to go to bed when it’s so nice outside.