Traveling to Fairbanks

July 16, 2015


We left Chicken with clear skies for one of our longest travel days, 283 miles ahead of us. First group pulled out at 8:00 and we made good time going down the Taylor Highway. The girls in the campground office in Chicken told us that it would take about 3 hours to travel this road because of the pot holes and gravel, but we made it in about 1.5 hours, mostly at a steady 55 miles per hour.

It was nice to get back onto the Alaska Highway, even with all the frost heaves and pot holes. After a week on dirt and gravel, even Phil was ready to wash at least one layer of dirt off of the rig when we got to Tok!!

A right turn here, going through Tok, AK to get to Fairbanks

Beautiful day for travel!!

We stopped in Delta Junction at the Visitor's Center. This is the end of the Alaska Highway, the rest of our day will be on the Richardson Highway.

End of the Alaska Highway monument

It was a beautiful sunny day, but the wind was blowing and it was nippy. As usual, Phil thought it was just right!!







We stopped for ice cream at the Knotty Shop, where everything was make out of burel wood







This is $10.00 a FOOT, but it is labor intensive to remove the bark from this wood

We made it to Fairbanks and River's Edge RV Park. Our rig is in the first spot going into the park.

July 14, 2015

We got up really early this morning to get to the George Black Ferry early enough (5:00 am) to miss the crowds so we could get all 21 rigs across the Yukon River without the long waits we have heard about. The ferry is the only way to leave Dawson Creek, and continue to the Top of the World Highway. The ferry is free and provided by Dawson City. It will generally take only one RV at a time, along with a few cars. Our group made it across with no miss-

haps, which is always a very good thing.

There was a lot of apprehension about driving the Top of the World Highway, due to road conditions, sharp drop offs, soft shoulders and lack of guard rails. None of us had any problems, in-spite of fog and rain. 

This was a surprise...snow...in
July???

 This is the story of the Top of the World Highway

Little known time zone

 In our rush to get across the ferry, we didn't take into account that the border doesn't open until 8:00 am. So we had about a 40 minute wait.

 Then we found out that the computers were down, so we waited some more while the agents inside frantically tried to get things up and running before all 21 rigs stacked up on them.

 When the fog and rain finally lifted, we had some great views, and brand new paved roads after we crossed the border. The road lasted about 10 miles, then we were back to dirt. There had been just enough rain though to keep the dust at bay.

 As we got closer to Chicken, AK, the road got narrow, and we had more traffic from the other direction.

 Pretty wild flowers along the road

and a river far below.

Chicken, AK, winter population about 4, summer population about 20

July 9 - 13, 2015  Dawson City, YT

We arrived in Dawson City under cloudy skies, with rain threatened, but, thankfully, not falling!! We are staying at Bonanza Gold RV Park, just outside of Dawson City, nothing fancy, but we have full hookups, so we are happy!

Dawson City is a very interesting town, it was one of the gates to the gold fields during the various gold rushes, and a mining town in it's own right. Mining is still going on here, but it is difficult work, as Dawson City sits on permafrost. The permafrost is so close to the surface that other than the main street through town, the other streets are not paved. Heat from the sun on the pavement causes the permafrost below to also heat and melt, causing sink holes in the summer and then the water refreezes during the winter which causes expansions, or as called here, frost heaves. Makes for a very roller coaster type experience when you are traveling down the roads. The maintenance departments can only work on the roads during the summer, so quick fixes are the answer. This means they just have time to bring in the heavy equipment to mow down the heaves and throw some gravel on the dirt. This method eventually leads to more gravel road than paved.

In Dawson City, if there was ever gravel, it is gone now. The roads are hard packed dirt, with wooden sidewalks, just like the wild west. Several of the older buildings are leaning because they used wood heat back in the day, which caused the permafrost beneath the building to melt, taking the foundations of the buildings with it. If there were two buildings built close together, then they would lean into each other.

One of the highlights of our stay in Dawson City was the 'Diamond Tooth Gertie Show', which takes place in 'Gertie's' gambling hall, and while the show must go on, so does the gaming! Tom got picked from the audience to go up on stage and learn how to 'can-can' complete with skirt and little feather hat! He seemed to be having a little trouble with the coordination of kicking and working the skirt. We all got a good laugh out of it though!!

Other highlights included Jack London's cabin, which had been restored and moved to a location in town (for those that don't recognize the name, he wrote many books, one of which was "Call of the Wild"). We also saw Robert Service's cabin (he was a poet), both men were lured here by the promise of gold.

After being moved and reconstructed, Jack London's cabin is taken care of by the Historical Society 

This was the before picture of London's cabin 

Robert Service on the subject of 
gold.

 
 
 Above, the Flora Dora Hotel, which rented rooms by the hour...

Left, the lookout called Midnight Dome, overlooks Dawson City, but due to smoke from fires in the Yukon and Alaska, the view was spoiled.

 This extreme RV was parked up at the Midnight Dome. We have seen rigs like this on RV shows on TV. This particular one was from Germany and had stickers from places they had been from all over the world!!

Beautiful leather and bead work in the Indian Cultural Center! 

The old Commissioner's home, in the process of being restored, but still needs some serious work and TLC 

 We all had to have booties over our shoes to protect the fragile carpets and floors

 The only piece of furniture that we were allowed to sit on was this chair made of moose antlers. Sandy and Phil both tried it out.

 The first floor was in pretty good shape, but the second floor rooms are in bad need of lots of work

 The home has been through a few transitions in it's time, one of which was a hospital.


After the tour, we had tea and cakes (cookies), it was all quite proper!