Wednesday, August 1st
We started the second day of our trip with pancakes made with fresh blueberries and strawberries that Charla picked with Sarah and Logan on Monday afternoon. While Charla was busy at the camp stove, Chase re-packed the Pilot so what we needed was easy to reach and what we didn’t need on this trip (like a snowboard and winter gear) was organized and out of the way.
We drove into Tok for gas and some errands, including phone calls before our service cut out (even though Tok is 80 miles from Canada, there isn’t a lot going on in the space between the small town and the border). On the way to Tok, we had a nice surprise and saw a lynx! After ten miles on the Alaska Highway out of Tok, we got on the Taylor Highway to Chicken. Our journey into Chicken started with a big disappointment, as the “Chicken Community” sign formerly covered in an assortment of stickers from travelers had recently been replaced. It was brand spanking new, with the Department of Transportation laminate still peeling off on the corners. Things got better once we got into town, and we got laid in Chicken! We also picked up free chickens that we had earned and met a couple Romanian motorcyclists who were journeying across North America on their own bikes from home. We had one last stop at Downtown Chicken for gas, and luckily for us we paid up and were ready to leave just as two busloads of Princess tourists pulled up to Downtown. The tourists slowly waddled off the bus, cameras in hand, to invade Chicken as we sped out of town.
We drove into Tok for gas and some errands, including phone calls before our service cut out (even though Tok is 80 miles from Canada, there isn’t a lot going on in the space between the small town and the border). On the way to Tok, we had a nice surprise and saw a lynx! After ten miles on the Alaska Highway out of Tok, we got on the Taylor Highway to Chicken. Our journey into Chicken started with a big disappointment, as the “Chicken Community” sign formerly covered in an assortment of stickers from travelers had recently been replaced. It was brand spanking new, with the Department of Transportation laminate still peeling off on the corners. Things got better once we got into town, and we got laid in Chicken! We also picked up free chickens that we had earned and met a couple Romanian motorcyclists who were journeying across North America on their own bikes from home. We had one last stop at Downtown Chicken for gas, and luckily for us we paid up and were ready to leave just as two busloads of Princess tourists pulled up to Downtown. The tourists slowly waddled off the bus, cameras in hand, to invade Chicken as we sped out of town.
But we didn’t speed too quickly, as the Taylor Highway ascended up into the mountains and grew increasingly hairy. Just a short time before we passed, a large RV motorcoach with a car in tow had rolled off the side of the mountain and come to rest approximately 150 feet below the road. The Troopers had already cordoned off the scene so we didn’t stop to investigate ourselves, but it didn’t look like a rollercoaster ride we’d have wanted to experience.
The Taylor Highway becomes the Top of the World Highway as the road becomes Canadian. Luckily we were let across the border without too hard a time from the Canadian Border Security Agent on duty (even though we were smuggling some more of Charla’s freshly-picked berries). We had been foolishly using our time earlier in the day, so we cautiously drove as fast as we dared along the beautiful and treacherous road to Dawson City. Arriving just in time to jump on the George Black, the free ferry across the Yukon River (because the Yukon territorial government hasn’t yet gotten around to building a bridge) we made it to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s just in time for their first can-can show of the evening. Gertie’s is Canada’s oldest casino from before casinos were legal in the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, and today in addition to gambling Gertie’s offers shows throughout the evening. Told by Diamond Tooth Gertie (the actual proprietor in the 1890s, who actually did have diamonds in her teeth at the time) and her dancing girls, the show tells us how she met Phineas and all the hilarity that ensues. After a dinner between shows at the Triple J Hotel, and the second show at Gertie’s, it was time for one last hop across the ferry to camp in West Dawson.
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