Dawson City, Yukon to Tok, Alaska

Top of the World Highway

This is an alternate route that we've chosen because it is designated as a scenic highway. The only way to get to it is via a (free) ferry across the Yukon River. The ferry runs 24 hours a day from Dawson City. We cross at full capacity with one other RV and 5 cars. It heads up stream then turns back against the current using the water flow to hold it at the “dock”. The dock is a gravel ramp with an onsite D-9 tractor on each bank sitting next to a big old pile of gravel. Gravel is added to the ramp as quickly as the Yukon erodes it away.

 The highway traverses a ridge between two mountain ranges that are serrated blue lines in the distance on both left and right. Folded undulations of green fill in below us. Arctic lupines provide the border today with pink splashes of wild rose, yellow potentilla, and bright blue bells, perhaps a cousin of our familiar grass widow. There are traces of snow up here and as we approach the summit, we are swallowed by mist. The US border appears as we start to descend. This is the most northerly land border port in the USA.

President Obama’s portrait smiles at us from inside the customs shelter. I smile back. The guys who man this crossing live up here. It seems pretty solitary. Of course they have people like us to break the monotony.

And now we are officially in Alaska! We have a brief celebration and then watch as the highway pavement gives way to a packed dirt surface which seems ok until it starts to drizzle. The dirt turns to mud, excuse me, MUD. The road becomes rutted and slick, the truck and trailer turn quickly from silver to brown. There are no guard rails or painted lines.  The road is so narrow we have to stop to let on-coming cars pass. Thankfully, there aren’t too many. Incredibly, a pilot car comes into view with a Holland American tour bus following. We inch over and stop to let it go by. A tour bus up here seems just a little unwise. Jim notices that one of our storage bins has come open which leads to the first use of duct tape on this journey. The bumpy road has caused the cap to fall off, so we pull over again while he tapes it closed. Then the section the locals call “the goat trail” looms ahead. This is four miles of 1000 foot drop offs and still no guard rails. The valley is so far below that the FortyMile River looks like a snail trail and not the wide waterway that we know it to be.


We both breathe easier as we leave that particular section of road behind and pull into Chicken, Alaska, population 23 in summer, 6 in winter. The place is buzzing as they get ready to host ChickenStock, a bluegrass music festival that they’ve patterned after Woodstock. This tiny place has tons of personality all revolving around chickens. As the story goes the town was to be named Ptarmigan, after Alaska's state bird, but nobody could spell it so they settled on Chicken. This place is a perfect anecdote to the mud and ruts so we take a break and enjoy it. An older lady, (my age), working in a gift shop tells me she’s from Spokane. She and the man she is traveling with had mechanical troubles with their RV and are sort of stranded in Chicken. She took a job in the store while they wait to get it all sorted out. Soon after we leave this unique little town pavement appears once again and we cruise.

Our day ends in Tok, Alaska, North America. They tell us the lower 48 is South America. We are now on Alaska Time one hour earlier than Pacific Time.

We are suffering from bear withdrawal.

Wildlife count: 0

Airstreams: 0

Miles: 189

Gratitudes: PKB: safe passage JMB: pressure washers

Gin Score: J: 1025 P: 995

Yukon Ferry

MUD