Alaska!

Top-of-the-World Highway

This road runs from Dawson City in the Yukon into Alaska. The 110-mile drive today was a dirt road with the exception of a 9-mile long paved stretch in the middle - seems odd to have a short paved stretch in the middle of a long dirt highway. 

arrived in Alaska!

I've wanted to come to Alaska since I was 14. My day trip to Skagway last week was to a small corner of Alaska, but that corner isn't connected to this main part of the state, so this feels like my official arrival.  

                                     

Chicken, Alaska

Apparently, the original residents here wanted to name the town after a chicken-like bird called a ptarmigan. However, they couldn't agree on how to spell that, so they compromised on "Chicken". It became a small town when the Pedro Dredge (now a National Historic Site) was set up here to dig for gold. Besides a few crazy tourists who support 2 small combos of rv park/gift shop/cafe, there is still some gold mining here. They now use a suction dredge, which sucks up the mud out of the creek bottom & separates out the gold; never heard of that before. The tiny post office is so cute.

Wildlife sightings

today: caribou - 11 (3 babies!)

trip total so far: 

    black bears - 4          deer - 2                grizzlies - 1            moose - 2

    stone sheep - 8        elk - 1                   caribou - 12            bison - 42    

    Dall sheep - 0