The Yukon: Top of the World Highway (8.19.24)

We drove the "Top of the World Highway" from Dawson City, Yukon, to Chicken, Alaska, on August 19, 2024.  

The trip began with a ferry ride across the Yukon River.

We passed a Deere excavator on the far bank of the river.  Jonny was in charge of marketing Deere excavators all over North America for a few years, so we watch for Deere excavators everywhere, including in remote places.

As we drove over the Top of the World Highway, the views were spectacular.

By early afternoon, we were in Chicken, a ramshackle but colorful place.  We stopped for lunch at the cafe, which had very good soup.

The settlers in Chicken reputedly wanted to name their town after the local bird, "ptarmigan," but they couldn't spell it.  They named the town "Chicken" instead.

We had heard that floors buckle and buildings tilt when the permafrost under them melts.

As I walked inside the Chicken Mercantile Emporium, the aisle slanted up at about a 15 degree angle!  In Dawson, buildings are built on stilts, concealed beneath a molding, so that the heat of the building doesn't melt the permafrost.

We finally arrived in Tok, a town on the Alaska Highway where roads from all over Alaska converge.  From Tok, you can make your way to Anchorage, Fairbanks, or, as we did, to Haines Junction, back in Canada. We had rented a cute cabin, very remote.

Our car was grubby, after traveling in the rain over dirt roads.

Bernie was excellent at the jigsaw puzzle of fitting four big bags and four small ones in the trunk.

Alas, we discovered, when we entered the cabin, that it had only one bedroom and one bathroom for two couples!  

That was too snug, we decided.  Dave immediately went online and rented the last lodging in the Tok area--another B&B cabin.

This time, the cabin was more than we needed, but it was a great place to watch the first night of the Democratic National Convention!