Got packed up and ready to go! We’ll leave the coach in Tok for the next few days and travel by Jeep. Starting the day off right we stopped at the ‘Grumpy Grizz Café’ in Tok for breakfast. Driving a short way back down the Alcan we turned onto the Taylor Highway (Rte 5) which will take us to Chicken. Taylor Highway is a pretty good road for 66 miles and is the only road to Chicken from the U.S. The highway travels through a forest area which has serious damage from the Taylor Complex Fires that burned 1.3 million acres in 2004. Wild fires are common here and a part of natures cycle. It’s amazing how the fire will jump the highway burning both sides and then a few feet further only one side is burnt and the other untouched.Rolling through the Tanana Valley State Forest we can look all around us and see forests as far as we can see. It is just immense! This was the 1st Alaska State Forest and has 1.81 million acres. As we begin to climb towards Mt. Fairplay there is some road damage, but not bad. Even though it’s cloudy the views are still gorgeous. We wind along ridges and over hills overlooking several streams that will eventually become the Forty-Mile River which flows 60 miles into the Yukon River. This area is home range for the Forty-Mile Caribou Herd. Once a herd of 500,000, the numbers declined to a low of 6,000 in the mid 70’s. A 4 year recovery program was kicked off using wolf control and the herd grew to about 40,000. They are normally grazing at this time above the timber line, but in the fall they migrate east across the highway. With the clouds we didn’t have a good view.
About 10 miles before chicken we came to the West Fork of the Dennison River and there was a fishing access off to our left. We decided to stop and walked down to the river. There was a nice little pool and we fished just beyond the bridge. Ken got the 1st Grayling and I got the next one! They were only about 12inches but they were fun to catch. After a while they seemed to disappear.
Back in the car the road turned to dirt and we arrived in Chicken . Supposedly Chicken was named by early miners who wanted to name their camp Ptarmigan, however they were unable to spell it and decided on Chicken instead, the common name in the North for Ptarmigan. Our first stop was the Post Office and Ken was soon on a first name basis with the Post Mistress. The population may be 21 but she handles 1200 lbs of mail a week. Some people send “dirt” home from the mines to friends and family and some of the mail is ore. They do still find gold here!
Leaving the Post Office we ambled up the road and stopped in Downtown Chicken. The three buildings are some of the last remnants of old Frontier Alaska. We had lunch in the famous café and then went to check into our cabin at the Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost. The Busby’s came to Chicken 30 years ago and mined for gold on a remote creek. Later they purchased and mined the claims where the Gold Camp is located. After registering, in the gift shop of course, we were directed to the Willow Creek Cabin. Silly us we thought the cabins had running water….wrong this is Chicken. The outhouse is about 25 yards away and we use the ½ bath at the office to wash up - welcome to the 1800’s.
After getting settled we drove the Chicken loop ….We read the history of the Pedro Dredge which the owner moved to it’s current spot to save it from being destroyed. It’s a great story. The dredge operated on Chicken Creek between 1959 and 1967, after mining Pedro Creek outside Fairbanks from 1938 until 1959. In 1998, after being left idle for 31 years, the million pound dredge was moved in one piece, no simple feat, to its present location. In 2006 the dredge was put on the National Register of Historic Places.
Driving around town took 15 minutes, so we ended up back in Downtown to check out the Mercantile. Ken bought a great book called “Oh No We’re Gonna Die” with humorous stories of close calls in the Alaska Wilderness. Chicken has no water, sewer, electricity, grocery, no cell phone service - phone period. A satellite phone does work if you’re standing in the right place. It was drizzly and a perfect time to find chairs on the porch of the Chicken Saloon and hang out. We met “Steve” from Maine who cooks the BBQ Chicken , logs, and who knows what else. We got to meet Susan Wiren who owns Downtown Chicken and runs it single-handedly and Rose who works there from Wisconsin. We hung out all afternoon, watched the bus load of tourists stop for 10 minutes, with a choice of gift shop or outhouse….then they moved on again. About 6pm we got a BBQ Chicken plate - what else! After lots of colorful stories and a few whiskies we said goodnight.
Back at the Outpost we sat on the porch and got talking to a guy from New Zealand who guides here and works the gold mine. He brings folks up to the mine and helps them pan for gold. We may stop back here and do some panning on our way back to Tok.
It was time to call it a day as we wandered back to our cabin. We really got to experience Chicken and meet it’s people.
It was a great day.
Pictures: Tanana River Valley, Taylor Highway View, Dennison River Grayling (2), Climbing Mt. Fairplay, Chicken Post Office, Downtown Chicken, Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost, Willow Creek Cabin (2), Pedro Dredge
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