12 Dawson thru Chicken
After leaving the Dawson City area we headed West across the Top of the World Highway. This is a beautiful ride which took us
across the Western Yukon to the US Border and, eventually, back to the Alaska Highway after a stretch on the Taylor Highway.
This building was the schoolhouse and it has a pretty interesting history.
These are the remains of a roadhouse. They were spaced along the trails to provide shelter and food for travelers.
This cairn marks the highest point on the Top of the World Highway.
The US/Canada border.
The Jack Wade and Pedro Dredges. Actively worked these areas around Chicken, Alaska until the 1960’s.
The Pedro Dredge was moved here from elsewhere in Alaska and is located in Chicken. It has been restored and tours are available.
Chicken is a pretty neat town. To us it typifies the bush country of Alaska altho it does have roads in and out, which many town do not have. The highway passing thru it is graded dirt as is the one other street in town. There are no municipal services such as electric, water, sewer, phone service. The 2 RV parks have their own power generation, septic systems, and wells. No TV altho they do have wi-fi internet via satellite. There are 2 mail flights each week. Roads into and out of Chicken are dirt and are closed in the winter as there is no snow plowing. Winter population is 7 and summer (not including tourists, is around 27). This is downtown Chicken which consists of a tourist type store, a bar/liquor store, and a cafe. They close in the winter.
The bathrooms at downtown Chicken.
A dog sled. They actually do use them!!
Abandoned equipment on a claim. In many cases is was cheaper to abandon the equipment than to move it. Could be the owner went broke.
An old prospector Carole ran into.
Chicken even has a historic area. This was a very busy mining town in its day. The town was a company town with communal facilities, store, shops, etc.
There was a book written about life in the bush as told by an individual who lived and taught in Chicken in the early 1900’s. The title of the book is “Tisha”, it is written by Robert Specht, and the subject person is Anne Hobbs who, as a 19 year old, moved from Colorado to Chicken. This is her school house and she lived in the rear of the school. Note how the building has settled due to melting of permafrost. The floor was reconstructed to make it safe to walk on and it does show how much the building sank.
The roadhouse.
Will end this with the end of our visit to Chicken. Hope you enjoyed it!!
