Day 27 Sunday Chicken Alaska
Really enjoyed Tok, but I think we'd seen it. I went in to thank the ladies, only to find none of the three we'd met, but another one, takes the wind out of your sails somehow.
We filled up with cheap American diesel, after help from a lovely diesel delivery driver. I'd asked him if he knew how many litres in an American gallon, for Brian's sad spreadsheet. He didn't, and he seemed to be spying on Brian, but this was only because Brian was having problems getting the pump to start. He sorted him out, got his phone and told us the conversion, and then told Brian we really should be going to Valdez. That's 4.5 hours in the wrong direction, I don't think so, but everyone is so helpful.
It wasn't far to Chicken, but, as usual, we stopped at every pull out. Not that we saw any moose, or Caribou, just lots of amazing scenery.
15 people live in Chicken, in the summer, which is only called Chicken because nobody could spell ptarmigan. In the winter it's 2. The post mistress and her husband. If she didn't stay here they would close the position. How silly is that?
I'd spent the journey feeling slightly deflated about Chicken, I'd got it into my head I'd be able to pan for gold, but had then read that it was a day outing which we wouldn't be in time for, that Brian didn't want to do and that I didn't think my foot would be able to do. So I was thrilled to drive in and see people standing and panning for gold.
We had a little look around and I got my bucket of paydirt and my pan and I was away. It's harder than it looks though, and the gold is much smaller than you would expect. We had a good chat with a young Australian couple as they were finishing off, and then I was on my own. It rained a couple of times so we had to run indoors. The first time quite hard, only to remember that the skylights were open on the van. Brian trotted off and said the bed was really quite wet. Fortunately it seems ok now as I write!
I did my bucket, I have my gold, though what I can actually do with it is another matter! We both felt at this point that we deserved a pint in the Chicken saloon. It was the girls first time behind a bar, so getting served wasn't quick, but we joined everyone else at the bar and had a great chat. Mostly with a couple from Michigan who as it turns out had spent last night at the same park as usual in Tok, and were spending tonight there too. They had left their RV and driven in their car through Chicken, to Dawson City, which is where we are going tomorrow and were on their way back. About 10 hours drive for a day trip! They are just in a different league to us! They were both also on their second whiskey and cokes, before starting the 2 hour drive back to Tok on a fairly hideous road!
Having had our one, ridiculously strong beer we returned to our van to heat up the left over Thai curry from last night.
We are on a campsite, but we might as well be wild camping. There are no flushing toilets in the whole of Chicken, they have no trash collection so please ship it out, and if you would mind not dumping (because that all gets tankered out) it would be much appreciated. I haven't even looked in the showers, we'll wait until the buzzing metropolis of Dawson City tomorrow!
Days 28 - 30 Dawson City
Having stayed on Canada time while in Alaska we were up bright and early, except that I'd woken up, heard birds, looked at the phone to discover it was midnight. We are nearly at the longest day, and we are very far north!
This drive, the 'Top of the World ' highway was what had called to Brian. It was an hour and a half to the Alaska/Canada border, and then about the same to Dawson City. We'd heard that although it wasn't paved at all and was just a gravel road it was actually better to travel along than the road through Beaver Creek that we'd done to get to Alaska, and so it was.
We got to the border, and spoke to the nice Canadian. They are only there from when the ice breaks across the Yukon River in Dawson City (about 3 weeks ago) till the end of September. He wanted to know if we'd bought anything or been asked to bring anything, both of which were a no, then welcome back to Canada and off we went. About 5 minutes, to the lookout on the next hill when Brian realised that we'd been stamped into the US, but had not been stamped out of the US. They were on the opposite side of the building, only talking to people going the opposite direction to us. Still, we hadn't gone far, so we drove back. We explained to the US border guard that we were actually leaving him, despite the direction we now appeared to be going. He spoke to his supervisor, who offered us a novelty stamp, but then had to speak to the Canadian border guard to find out whether they had to stamp us back in, so when we went round the building and back towards Canada it didn't completely confuse everything. We are still not quite sure how it all works as neither of us were aware of our passports being scanned or anything back into Canada. Hopefully we'll be able to prove we've left North America (in July) should the need arise, and I guess the worst that could happen is we are never allowed back into America again!
It was an amazingly scenic drive, compounded by our animal spotting. First, a porcupine that had gone across the road who we watched really struggle up the bank. He was very cute. Then a deery thing, we think was a caribou who trotted down the road ahead of us. The best however was a mama brown bear and her two little cubs who were also on the road, but quickly vanished over the edge. I leapt out of the truck, and did actually get a decent photo of the three of them. Hurrah!
This also went a long way to making us feel better about my ankle. Today was a fortnight since I was put into the boot by Dr. Kim in Ucluelet. He said to keep it on for a fortnight before trying to wean myself off it. Thrilled not to put it on this morning, I did put on the neoprene support that we bought immediately I'd done it, but I'm not even sure that is necessary, except if I happen to trip over my own feet again at least it'll give some support!
Anyway, we arrived in West Dawson in the 15 minutes the ferry took as a break, but that's fine, we were in no rush. There is no way across the Yukon River except the George Black Ferry, in the summer, which runs 24 hours a day, from late May to September. When the river is frozen there is a government maintained ice bridge from late December to April. What you do outside of those time I have no idea!
We arrived in the town and our campsite, right in the middle and fell in love with it. It's just like you expect a frontier town to be. So far we've been to the tourist information, the grocery store, and the saloon for beer and dinner. We have three nights here, which we are really looking forward to.
Day 29 Dawson City
A full day, we moved camp pitches before 09.00, a compromise between WiFi and toilet proximity, and got us away from being right next to the dump station which is certainly no bad thing!
09.30 guided tour for an hour and a half from the Visitor centre. A Parks Canada guide, all dressed up, and very very good, albeit only young. It's a great town, there is so much that is traditional it feels fabulous.
We had access to the British North America Bank, The Red Feather Saloon and the Post Office, that are only open for these tours. They were all as they would have been, the Saloon had fallen into disrepair and been used as a garage, but has been rebuilt from a photo of the time including as much of the artwork as they could.
There is a picture of a scantily clad lady, that looks remarkably like the one in the photo, and then he told us that when they had posted the photo in the town asking for help someone had the picture up in their loft.
I found the Post Office very sad, all these little post boxes with letters in that have never been opened. Post would have been sent to where someone said they were going, and would have taken months to arrive, but of course they may not have made it for one reason or another or they may have moved on. They could have died or anything and the sender would never have known.
We seemed to walk along the same bit of Front Street about a hundred times, going to the visitor centre, going to get lunch, going to the jewellery store, to hatch a plan for the tiny bit of gold I have so far panned. Back to the visitor centre to get the key to the camera obscura, back to take it back, to the grocery store. Better planning would have made a lot of sense, BUT, I have done 12000 steps and got a tick for my heart points on Google Fit for the first time since I did my ankle, so not all bad.
We went to the museum which took a long time, as it always does, before coming back for a drink and a chill. We are going to Diamond Tooth Gertie's tonight, Canada's oldest licensed gambling hall. Complete with cancan shows and a vaudeville act at 20.30, 22.00 and midnight.
We've just looked it up, and it is Canada's oldest gambling hall, but it did only open in 1971! However we are still going to go, have a drink, watch a show and put a couple of dollars on the roulette wheel. Only because profits from the casino actually go into the community.
Well that was a good evening. We went to the Drunken Goat Taverna for dinner, yummy Greek, and then headed off to the gambling hall.
We were early, so we quizzed the croupier on the roulette wheel before going and nabbing a good table. We quite fancied a quick spin, but not on our own, particularly as we have no idea what we are doing. We'd just sat down with our beer when I realised there was a lady, on her own at the table who obviously had as little idea as we did, so we left our beers and went and joined her. We took $10 of chips and spent half an hour before cashing out with $20. I went back to our table, and sent the ladies husband over to her, promising to save their seats and drinks. He came back eventually saying he'd created a monster! She couldn't lose, and cashed out with $40, not bad as she started with a $10 voucher each that their hotel had given them.
I'm so glad we went and joined her, as was she, she'd have been on her own otherwise. It was tempting to keep the chips, apparently they are accepted through the whole town, so it would have been amusing to go and buy groceries with chips from the casino.
We then shared our little table with a couple from the cruise. Yes, we are a really long way from the ocean, but we'd walked past the Holland America hotel earlier. It appears they do a 3 day cruise, then fly to Whitehorse, then Dawson City, back to Whitehorse and out. They must do a lot of this as it's a big hotel, I'm sure she said there were 200 of them from the cruise. It appears you can book into the hotel on some nights, but not others. Seems very weird to me.
The show was great, a singer and 4 dancers, who I think had 6 costume changes in the half hour, 3 of which were cancan dresses, but all different. The energy was there, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, though we didn't fancy staying for the other two shows, as a couple we met on our way home did yesterday!
Day 30 Dawson City
We had to drive today, despite being here for another night. Our tour of gold mining dredge number 4 was out of town at 10.00. Another Parks Canada tour, by Leanne who obviously loved the dredge. She was so enthusiastic it was great.
The money that was invested into these things probably barely covered the costs. It was shipped in bits from Ohio, on the train, except for the gear wheels which were too big and had to come by sea. It was built in 1912 It cost nearly half a million dollars, and only produced about 8 million dollars of gold. Some years it made a profit, some a loss.
The landscape was altered beyond all recognition and still looks a mess to this day. All for the sake of gold!
We were on the bridge when we saw the moose and its calf who live locally and are seen most days. She walked across quite quickly, looking behind them as she went. I don't think anyone actually believes me, but she was being followed by a black bear which explains why she was looking so frightened.
We moved from here to a little walk and then onto a free claim. I'd borrowed a gold pan from the visitor information centre and set out to try my luck in the river.
The first problem was I had no wellies so I went for flip flops. This was a big mistake as my ankles are now covered in mosquito bites which are a bit irritating.
There was so much quartz in the rock it was easy to think there was lots of gold in the pan, but of all the people there when we arrived and the lady from our tour, only one flake was found, so I didn't add to my findings from Chicken.
We stopped in at the jewellers on Front Street and I've bought a little silver ring, with three blobs of local gold on. The blob in the middle is now bigger than it was, because as well as making the ring bigger the jeweller melted down my gold and added it to what was already there. For that and sizing he charged $10 which was amazing. That's my holiday ring sorted then!
We've finalised our plans for this leg of the trip, and made a couple of bookings for the Calgary leg while we have WiFi, which maybe the last time for a week when we are back in Whitehorse, so not sure when this is going to get posted.
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