Chicken, AK and Dawson City, Yukon

The town of Chicken, AK was a gold mining town.  The miners wanted to name it after a bird that was plentiful and that they ate a lot.  That bird is the ptarmigan. The problem was that no one could spell it, so since it tastes like chicken they called the town Chicken.  We stopped in on our drive on the Top of the World highway on our way to Dawson City, Yukon Canada.  We took this trip by car out of Tok, AK.  Now looking at a map this only appears to be about a 2 hour drive.  But the road is so bad it takes about 4.5.

This is pretty much all of town

No water services in town but the outhouse is very nice

We had chicken pot pie in Chicken.

There is a joke about the ptarmigan.  Why can't you hear a ptarmigan urinate?  The P is silent!

From Chicken is was off to Dawson City which is across the Yukon River.  No bridge but a free ferry.  There is also no real dock, they just pull up to the shore that has been excavated...sort of.

Dawson City was A gold town on the Yukon River.  We have seen and read a lot about the Yukon River since being in Fairbanks. The river was a major transportation route.  Dawson is the original name and changed to Dawson City when it was the capitol of the Yukon.  Whitehorse is now the capitol and most folks just call Dawson City, Dawson.  We spent 2 nights there.  We took several self guided tours and some guided tours.

Dredge No. 4 was the largest dredge in the world.  It is still standing and being refurbished.  It is about 6 miles outside of town.

No tour of Dawson is complete without a stop at Diamond tooth Gerties.

It was a fun show.

On the way back to Tok we went through US customs.

A note here about the Top of the World Highway.  It is supposed to be a beautiful drive.  However both the trips over and back was rainy, foggy and bad visibility.  What we could see looked great.  And after driving it I doubt either of us will ever complain about potholes again.