Chicken

SO what does one do to follow up such an incredible experience? Well, go to the Top of the World, of course! Conveniently located just a ferry ride to the other side of the Yukon river from Dawson City and leading west toward Alaska, the Top of the World highway winds it’s way toward the border for 60 miles or so. Just as we were climbing up to the first ridge, a BIG cat crossed the road and then casually looked back at us as we slowly passed the spot where he went into the brush. Turns out it was a lynx. Soooo beautiful and majestic! If only I’d had the camera ready!   Lesson learned!   Again the drive was so colorful but this time the road was following the tops of the mountains and along ridges.  In the distance there were numerous cloud shrouded mountain ranges visible in every direction.  You could peer deep down canyons with cold blue-green rivers flowing through black spruce forest and follow the change to smaller shrubs and finally tundra as your eye moved up the mountainside.  It really did feel so much like the very top of the world! But then we checked our map and found out the highest point was around 4,500’. Geeze, our place in Clifton is higher than that! Shows you it’s all really perspective…..

We spent the night pulled off on a dirt side road surrounded by gorgeous colors once again. It was like being in another world….Next morning we crossed the border in a truly remote and beautiful spot. The agent we spoke with there described the scene of watching 100,000 caribou migrate over the pass where he works. It sounded so amazing!  But what was even more amazing to us was that we were actually, finally in ALASKA! Yup, only 3 weeks to get through Canada (who knew it would be so big and full of interesting places?) and finally we arrived, greeted by a couple Inushucks high on Davis Dome.

From there we coasted (almost) down along a lovely creek to the little town of Chicken.   Really.  Chicken, Alaska, pop. 130 summer, 2 winter.  It was founded by a couple of miners (they wanted to call it ptarmigan, but couldn’t spell that) who eventually pulled over a ton of gold out of the creek and surrounding area. These days there are still folks mining around here in fact Jim successfully tried his hand at gold panning and in the process met some very interesting people.  Several residents have restored some of the old buildings and one couple created a wonderfully landscaped campground and store/restaurant on an old tailings site.  We had stopped just to check it out, take a few photos and of course acquire a few Chicken mementos for the chicken lovers we know back home, but the place was so sweet and the people so kind we wound up spending the rest of the day and camping out there, too.  While Jim was panning, I took a ride out around “town” (there are maybe 6 buildings and an old, giant dredge spread out over a half mile or so).  Some one had advised me to head out to the airstrip to look for moose (really?) so I did and in fact about 3 minutes after arriving found a young bull feeding in a pond off to the side of the runway. He SO did not care about me being there, just went on munching very contentedly. It was way beyond cool to be able to stand and watch this guy for quite a long time.

We were warned that people often have a hard time leaving Chicken and so it was for us. In the morning we were packed and pretty much ready and the next thing I knew, Jim was over at the panning site with another load of gravel in Dave’s rusty old pan! Guess there really isn’t any blaming him. It’s a pretty cool thing to watch those shiny little flecks of gold appear as the sand washes away.  We did finally manage to get going and make our way back to the pavement of the Alaska Highway a couple hours later.  Turned out to be a week long detour but worth every mile!!!