Seward

Our early wake-up was worth it! We left Portage Valley at 6 AM and headed south toward Seward. It’s about an 80 mile journey through beautiful mountains, and we arrived at the City of Seward’s free RV dump station before 8 AM. We had to wait for a few minutes to get to the dump station, so the gals took the cars to the Municipal Campground to see what might be available. The campground takes no reservations and is divided into two sections, one with water & electric hookups and the other without any hookups. They were able to locate three hookup sites at the water’s edge that would be available within an hour or so, and they quickly claimed those sites, then stood around tapping their feet until the departing campers left. The guys followed with the motorhomes once the gals said, “OK".

Seward is a town of about 2,500 people and it’s located on Resurrection Bay. Several cruise lines use Seward as an embarkation point, since the Alaska Railroad also has a station here to move cruise passengers to a departure airport.
It’s quite a nice settlement, with a library, several charter fishing companies, a fish processing plant for commercial fishermen, a large marina, a Safeway, and lots of other tourist-related businesses. We headed for the Post Office and retrieved our mail which had only taken 3 days to get here from Windsor. Our house-sitters, Ron and Ali, are doing great job taking care of the house and the mail for us. We are so thankful!


The weather was mostly cloudy and rainy until Sunday, which dawned bright & sunny, and has remained so all day. Tom walked to a hardware store and the marina and back without a hat, and now sports a pink forehead. The next couple of days are supposed to be more of the same, but toward the 4th of July weekend it is predicted to cloud up and shower again.

The bay is a beehive of activity. We have several sea otters who spend much of the day playing in the water in front of the campground, an occasional harbor seal pops up from time to time, and every evening about 8 PM, a bald eagle makes two or three passes in front of us. There are all sizes and shapes of commercial, charter and private boats coming and going. We’ve seen the NCL’s Radiance of the Sea, a 2,500 passenger cruise ship,
and also Holland America’s Zaandam, which carries about 1,400 passengers. Later this week the Tahitian Princess, Princess Cruise Line’s smallest vessel at 670 passengers will be here. They arrive at various times of the morning, but all leave between 8 & 9 PM. So far, it’s just been one ship at a time, but the schedule says that there will be two here at once later this week.

We’ve visited the Sea Life Center, a small aquarium and a University of Alaska-related research and rescue center. We all enjoyed our visit there. On the walk from the campground, we also saw a marker identifying Seward as "Mile 0" on the Iditerod Trail. The trail was established as a route to the interior and west coast of Alaska in 1920. The famous dog sled journey for which the current race is named actually took place in 1925, and started from Nenana to deliver diptheria serum to Nome. We went out to dinner – at the local Elks Club, where we had cocktails, cheeseburgers and chips for under $20 for the two of us! Maybe I’ll have to join an Elks Club somewhere. Most of their facilities have RV parking, some with hookups, some without.

Bob and Diane became friends with a number of RVers on their trip here in 2005. We’ve now met most of them, and they’re really nice. We had a dinner party on Friday night at Susan and Allen’s motorhome with some of the other friends. Most of them have left their motorhomes here and traveled back to the Anchorage area for the week. They’ll be back in a few days to enjoy the July 4th weekend. We’ll be staying here until July 6th, and we’ll tell you all about the “big doin’s” in Seward the next time we post an entry.

Through a Railroad Tunnel to Whittier

We traveled back through Anchorage on Sunday morning, then along the shore of the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet to the Portage Valley where we took up residence at the Williwaw Campground in the Chugach National Forest. It was hard to believe this is a National Forest campground; the sites are huge and spaced far apart, built to handle the largest RV’s on the road today. The interior roads and campsite parking are paved, and there are large picnic tables and fire rings at each campsite. No electricity, of course, and the only water was by hand pump, but one of the nicest Forest Service campgrounds we’ve ever seen. After setting up camp and enjoying our usual “happy hour”, we traveled about 15 miles back toward Anchorage to the small town of Girdwood and the Double Musky Inn for a wonderful dinner. The Inn must draw diners who are traveling to and from the Kenai, because it was jammed with customers.

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful. The mountains are usually wrapped in clouds, but when they’re not, the view is spectacular. We hopped in our cars and headed for Whittier, about 5 miles away. Whittier was developed as a military facility during WWII, and the only access was by sea. The area is called Portage because this narrow isthmus that connects the mainland with the Kenai Peninsula was used as a route to carry goods or ‘portage’ from the Cook Inlet to Prince William Sound. In the early 1950’s, the army dug a 2.5 mile tunnel through a mountain to provide rail access to the base. The town was almost destroyed after the 1964 earthquake when the fuel depot shook apart, then burned. The army moved out of Whittier in the late ‘60’s and the town became nothing more than a cargo facility and a stop on the Alaska Marine Highway. In 2000, the single-bore tunnel was paved and a computerized traffic control system was established, allowing vehicles to get into Whittier without being shipped on rail cars. The tunnel is open to traffic from 5:30 AM until 11:30 PM daily, with inbound vehicles traveling on the half-hour, and outbound vehicles traveling on the hour, except when a train is scheduled for the tunnel.

A number of cruise ships use Whittier as an embarcation/demarcation point to change passengers since the town is served by the Alaska Railroad. Both Princess and Holland America have rail tours for their passengers who travel to other popular tourist spots in Alaska. The Island Princess was in port, the ship on which we sailed through the Panama Canal in 2003.


Once in Whittier, we booked a 5-hour glacier tour of Prince William Sound on a sightseeing boat. Although the weather had turned cloudy, the sea was very calm which made for a good trip. We saw a number of glaciers as well as sea otters, harbor seals and eagles, and stopped at a salmon fish hatchery. Like California and the other west-coast states, Alaska is experiencing a severe decline in the King Salmon population. Other species of salmon seem to be doing OK, though. We also saw the fishing fleet in action. The actual fishing boats are small gill net boats that lay their nets, weighted on the bottom, in the sound, then after a few hours, retrieve the nets and harvest their catch. They then motor over to a larger ‘tender’ boat which takes the fish, cleans them and packs them in ice. I’m not sure how it all works, but I believe the tender operator buys the fish from the fishermen rather than simply storing it for them.

We went into Harriman Fjord and spent some time close to Surprise Glacier, a tidewater glacier that extends to the water. There we saw seals resting on floating ice, and were able to watch the glacier ‘calve’, as chunks of ice fell into the water. Glaciers in Alaska number over 25,000, but almost all of them are receding fairly rapidly and have been doing so for about 100 years.
Global warming or a natural cycle? They really don’t know for certain.

Leaving Whittier in time to catch the 5 PM tunnel opening, we headed back to camp and dinner. This dinner mostly consisted of leftovers from the Double Musky, as the portions they’d served were huge!

The next morning we were kind of lazy, but did manage to walk to a salmon viewing platform near the campground. No fish to see, but a nice walk, anyway. Later in the day we drove a mile or so to the National Forest Visitor Center on Portage Lake where we watched a movie on glaciers and enjoyed the many exhibits. That, of course, was followed by time spent in the gift shop before returning to our camp. That day was Diane and Bob’s 41st Anniversary, so we celebrated by returning to the Double Musky and another fine dinner.

We got up early (like 4:30 AM) the next morning to begin our 2-hour trip to Seward, which will be our home for the next 11 days. The campground in Seward is owned and operated by the city, and there is great demand for waterfront campsites with electric and water hookups and no reservations. We wanted to get there early enough to grab spots as other campers packed up and moved out.

We’ll write more about our visit to Seward in the coming days.

Campout at King River

We left our Eagle River campground on Friday morning and, after topping off our fuel tanks and fresh water tanks at a local Fred Meyer store, we headed northeast for about 50 miles to an informal campground at the confluence of the King and Matanuska Rivers. We had been invited to join the Alaska Chapter (yes, there is only one) of the Holiday Rambler Recreational Vehicle Club (HRRVC) at their June campout. We had good directions and arrived at the campsite before any of the chapter members got there. After looking at many possible camping spots on the river rock-covered beach, we decided to park along side each other facing the Matanuska River. We had no more than gotten settled when Ed & Sue, wagon masters for this campout, arrived and pulled up in a large clearing just down the beach from us. At Ed’s request, we scattered our cars around the clearing to save spots for the other Chapter members. It was a good thing we did, ‘cause it wasn’t long before other campers started eyeing our ‘reserved’ area. Within a couple of hours, we were joined by two other motorhomes and a large 5th wheel trailer belonging to club members.
By Friday night, we realized what a popular spot this is, as at least 25 other campers had staked out campsites along the river for their tents, campers, trailers and motorhomes. The size of our group seemed to discourage them from camping in our immediate area, though.

These folks really know how to camp; no hookups, no clubhouse, no wi-fi, no restrooms, but a nice level place to camp alongside a beautiful river. They brought enough firewood to last at least a week, plus tarps to use as windbreaks and a 10’ x 20’ shelter, in case it rained. We all pitched in to stack firewood, raise the tarps and set up the shelter. After appetizers and drinks, we were on our own for dinner, so the three of us travelers had dinner in the Struthers’ rig. We rejoined the rest of the group to sit around the campfire until bedtime. It rained during the night, but it stopped by breakfast time. All the guys in the chapter brought 4-wheel ATV’s, and they invited Debbie (of course!) to ride with them. After a few minutes of instruction, off they went. About two hours (and about 10 miles) later, back they came, Debbie grinning from ear to ear! She said she had a super time, and the guys all said she did really well. After lunch, Debbie taught Alexandra, 14, the granddaughter of one of our new camping friends how to make hatbands out of soda & beer can pop tops. Grandpa Darrell said he’d do his best to keep her in beer can tops. In the late afternoon, we had home smoked and home canned salmon, caribou sausage, and other tasty appetizers, followed by a pot-luck dinner with the whole group. We ate inside the shelter, since the wind was blowing smoke from the campfire all over the place.

It started to rain again during the night, and by morning, it was really wet! Their tradition is to have bacon & eggs for breakfast, cooked in a huge fry pan over the campfire. The storm had, of course, put out the campfire embers from the night before, so a new fire had to be started with paper, dry twigs, small pieces of firewood, and a healthy shot of gasoline. Once going, though, the fire was just fine for cooking our breakfast. We ate in the shelter again, this time to help keep us dry. The rain stopped (or at least slowed down) long enough for us to help break camp and pack everything away before saying our goodbyes and heading off down the road. We agreed to all meet again for dinner in Palmer, when we come back through the area in mid-July.

Since we went right back past Eagle River, we once again pulled into Fred Meyer to dump our waste and refill our fresh water, since we would be camping without hookups for several more days near Whittier on Prince William Sound.

Questions & Answers from Anchorage

We arrived in Anchorage on Monday, and set up camp in a beautiful state park, Chugach Eagle River Campground. In Alaska, unlike California, the folks who run the parks understand that not all RV's are 26' long anymore. We have large level campsites, with room for our slide out rooms. We caravaned into Anchorage for a Costco stop. Anchorage is the only city in Alaska with a Costco, and they have two of them. By the way, gasoline at Costco was $4.169, probably cheaper than in California. Monday evening, Susan and Allen, who Diane and Bob met when they were here three years ago, joined us for "happy hour" in the campground, then for a mexican dinner (yes, it was as good as in California) in the town of Eagle River.


On Tuesday, we traveled into Anchorage itself and picked up enough brochures to start a dozen campfires from the Visitor Center. We parked our cars in what seemed to be the only free parking spaces in all of Anchorage, assembled our fold-up bicycles and headed out on the Coastal Trail which runs along Cook Inlet which connects Anchorage with the ocean. After returning to camp, we barbequed some sockeye salmon purchased at Costco. Yum!!

Wednesday morning, the gals headed for a laundromat, while LaVan and Tom found a barbershop for much needed trims. More sightseeing is on the agenda for the next day or so, then we leave the Anchorage area to spend a couple of days at a camp-out with a local Holiday Rambler club.

Now for the questions. We were asked how our cats are fairing on this long journey. For those of you who may not know, our two cats travel with us whenever we're on a motorhome trip.
I don't think they "enjoy" traveling, but they seem pretty content with it. A couple of changes have occurred on this trip; Bella, who usually rides on the sofa, has decided that she'd rather be under the covers on the bed, where her brother, Cocoa, has always ridden. Also, Cocoa, our "night" cat who usually doesn't come out to socialize until evening, is spending a lot more time on the furniture or on a window sill during the day.

We've also heard questions about the weather. Actually, it's much better than we expected. We've had lots of cloudiness, but very little rain, since leaving Washington state. Temps have mostly been in the 50's, except for Barrow, which was around 40 degrees, Fairbanks, which was around 70, and now in Anchorage, where it's in the high 60's. Debbie and Diane were shopping in a bead store yesterday, and the clerk was complaining about the oppressive heat! It might have been 69 or so, but she wished it would rain to cool things down. It all depends on your perspective, I guess.

Denali National Park

Our trip from Fairbanks was a fairly short one, only about three hours. We had reservations at an RV Park on a bluff above the Nenana River, just a couple of miles north of the park entrance. When we got there, we saw a sign which said, “Campers, use Grizzly Bear RV Park, 9 miles south”. Hmmm. That wasn’t our plan. So, the gals got out and went to talk to the guy in the office. It seems that they were having “issues” getting the RV Park open for the season. They had water and electricity, but apparently the bathrooms were not working right. Since we all have bathrooms in our rigs, he said we could stay. By that evening, there were about 3 or 4 other RV’s camped there, and by the afternoon of the next day, there were at least a dozen or so. Apparently, the “issues” were resolved, but the sign telling campers to use the other park was still up. Strange.


Anyway, after getting our camp set up, we got in our cars and headed into the park. Denali is very restrictive as to the use of private vehicles on park roads. Visitors are allowed to drive to the visitor center and several other park facilities within a mile or so of the entrance, and to drive to Savage River, about 15 miles inside the park. If visitors wish to go further into the park, (the road is 90 miles long) they must use the parks bus system. There are several different bus services; green shuttle buses are used to get visitors to various campgrounds, visitor facilities and view points on the road, and tan tour buses offer three different narrated tours. We had reserved tickets for the “Wilderness Tundra Tour” on Sunday morning, so we stopped and picked up those tickets before going to the Visitor Center to orient ourselves about the park.

Denali, the mountain, is the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet. It is not visible from the park entrance, but only comes into view at about the 50 mile point on the park road. Originally known as Mt. McKinley but now almost always referred to by the Athabaskan Indian word, Denali, or "the high one", the mountain is shrouded in clouds most of the time. On our first full day in the park, we took a 2 mile hike into Horseshoe Lake and back. It was a great walk, and although we didn’t see any of the “big five” game animals commonly seen in the park, we saw several large beaver dams that contribute to the size of the lake. That evening in celebration of Diane’s birthday, we had dinner at a beautiful restaurant high on a mountain overlooking the Nenana River and the park.

The next day, Saturday, we drove down the highway about 27 miles to a different and much less expensive campground where we settled in for another two-night stay. After dinner the first night, we drove about five miles east to see if we could see Denali. Most of the mountain was visible, but the very top was shrouded in clouds. Still, it was an impressive sight.

On Sunday morning, we got up very early (4:10 AM) in order to catch our Wilderness Tour bus which left at 5: 30. We really couldn’t call it, “0-dark-30”, because the sun had come up at 3:10 AM! It was overcast with rain-looking clouds, so we didn’t get our hopes of seeing the mountain too high, but as we got out of our car at the Wilderness Center, there was a female moose nibbling on the tree leaves in the bus turnout area. That, we thought might be a harbinger of good things to come.

Well, it was! During the trip, we saw a couple more moose, about six grizzly bears, including a sow with twin cubs, at least 15 Dall Sheep and numerous caribou, four of the “big five”.
We didn’t see wolves, which are number 5 on the list, but we did see several foxes and two lynx, a very rare sighting according to our driver/narrator. In addition, we saw hundreds of snowshoe hares, which are the favorite food for lynx and fox. We also spotted a golden eagle, several Willow Ptarmigan, the Alaska State bird, and several species of small rodents.

But the highlight of the trip was the mountain, itself. At about mile 53, we caught a glimpse of it with clouds all around. Then, a few miles later, our guide said we might be lucky; he thought the clouds were breaking up. He immediately sped up, and said that game watching would have to wait. As we rose over a pass, he asked us to close our eyes until he told us to open them. We did, of course, and about a minute later, he said, “Open your eyes.”, and there was Denali in all it’s glory, totally clear of the clouds! It was a breathtaking sight to see. We drove for a couple of more miles to a turnaround where we all got out of the bus for a photo session. As we stood there, a few clouds began to drift in front of the mountain, and after about 15 minutes, our guide asked us to load up and we headed back down the road. About five minutes after that he told us to look behind us, and the mountain was totally covered with clouds. Such was our wonderful luck that day. He told us that he drives that bus five days a week, and he sees the mountain about once every 14 trips. According to park statistics, only about 20% of the park’s visitors get to see the mountain. Wow! What a day!

The next day we packed up and headed for Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. We’ll tell you all about that later.

The Northernmost Town in the US

On Wednesday, Bob, Debbie & Tom got up early, were picked up and driven to the Fairbanks Airport where they caught an eight-passenger twin engine airplane for a flight to the town of Barrow, the northernmost town in the U.S.

Our first stop was for fuel and sack lunches in Coldfoot, a truck stop on the Alaska Pipeline Haul Road. On the way to Coldfoot, we followed the pipeline, and passed over several small villages and the Yukon River, which, at this point, is much larger than when we saw it in Dawson, YT. It’s over ½ mile wide and undulates like a snake through a large valley.

After a 45 minute stop in Coldfoot, we took off and soon were crossing the Brooks Range, rugged, barren mountains around 8,000 to 10,000 feet high. We followed a pass that took us through the “Gates of the Arctic” with high mountains on either side. Once over the Brooks Range, there was still over 200 miles of tundra, dotted with tiny lakes, most still frozen over, before arriving at Barrow.

We were met by a large Eskimo tour guide, Eli, who told us he’d just been hired the day before. That was OK, though, since he’s spent his whole life in Barrow, a town of just under 5,000 people. Barrow hasn’t seen a sunset since mid-May, and won’t until August. Of course, in the winter, they go just as long without seeing the sun at all! Eli, like most of the Eskimo population in the area, is a ‘subsistence hunter’. That means that while his family buy some groceries, they hunt for virtually all the meat they consume. He said they eat whale, seal, walrus, caribou and various ducks, geese and other game birds.

Eli took us to see a memorial to Will Rogers and Wiley Post, his friend and pilot, who were killed in a plane crash just 16 miles from Barrow in August, 1935. From there, we saw three well built and attractive schools, a senior center, a number of commercial enterprises, and the fire and police headquarters.

We saw an Air Force Station that operates a radar site on the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line which wraps around Alaska and Canada. The DEW line was built around 1960 as a joint US/Canada effort to detect missile launches from the Soviet Union. The radar system is still in operation today,

He took us to the Cultural Center and we got to hear some native songs, see some dances, and also demonstrations of a number of native skills. The Cultural Center was just across the street from a large grocery store, so we popped in there to check it out. It had most of the stuff that we’re used to, but wow, what prices! Eggs were $6.39 for 18, ½ gallon of milk was $7.00 and Ribeye steaks were $14.70 per pound. In addition to the usual grocery store stuff, they also had stoves, refrigerators, washers & dryers, furniture, and even Honda ATV’s.

Our last stop in Barrow was a short ride away, at the Arctic Ocean, where we had the opportunity to dip body parts into the ocean, which was still mostly frozen over. Debbie, of course, dipped her foot, while Bob & Tom took the more conservative approach and dipped a finger. It was cold!!

We headed back to Fairbanks on our little airplane at about 3:30 PM, passing over the Brooks Range once again before arriving in Fairbanks about 6:30 PM.
Once back to the RV Park, LaVan told us that the local Elks Lodge had “steak night” that evening, and we jumped at the chance for a good, reasonably priced dinner out.

On Thursday morning, we packed up our belongings and headed for Denali National Park, the home of the tallest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley. More on that, later.

Fairbanks, Alaska

After getting our rigs and ourselves settled into our campsites along the Chena River, we took a ride over to the University of Alaska – Fairbanks and spent several hours enjoying their Museum of the North. The museum, which sits on a hill overlooking Fairbanks, has exhibits on the geography, geology and the history of the people of Alaska. It is very well done, and also includes lots of art. Following the visit to the museum, several of us drove to the University’s Large Animal Research Station (LARS) and saw some of the musk oxen they are studying. They do research on sheep, musk ox, caribou, bears, and other large animals of the region. By the way, do you know the difference between caribou and reindeer? A reindeer is a domesticated caribou – that’s it!

The next day, Sunday, we did some shopping and sightseeing around town, then took a 3½ hour riverboat cruise on the Chena River. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.
The boat’s narrator is an old radio guy, so he spoke well, and obviously, could talk forever. A float plane took off, then landed again, right beside the boat (it was a planned event).

We stopped on the river at the sled dog kennels of Susan Bucher, the four-time winner of the Iditarod race who lost her battle with leukemia about a year ago. Debbie & I had the pleasure of attending a talk she gave three years ago while we were on our Alaska cruise. Anyway, her husband and two daughters, ages 8 and 11, are carrying on her work of raising and training racing sled dogs. David, the husband, told us about the dogs, then harnessed and drove a dog team around a training course at about 20 – 25 miles an hour. He was riding an ATV with the engine off, just using the brakes to keep control.

From there, we continued downriver to the confluence of the Chena and Tanana Rivers, where the pilot who demonstrated the float plane, landed another plane, this one equipped with ‘tundra tires’, on a river sandbar. Tundra tires are very large, but only carry about five pounds of air pressure, so they can land on soft ground. Following that demonstration, we stopped at an Athabaskan demonstration village. The Athabaskan people settled the interior of Alaska, and are not considered “Eskimos”. The Eskimos settled the coast of Alaska, from the Arctic Ocean to the Panhandle. Our Athabaskan guides showed us how they catch salmon in ‘fish wheels’, then dry the salmon to use as food for their sled dogs in the winter. The dried salmon is high in nutrition but weighs very little, so a lot of food can be packed on the sleds. We also saw their shelters, learned more about sled dogs, saw how they make and decorate clothing, and viewed a reindeer exhibit. From there, it was back up the river to Fairbanks and our cozy camp.

The next day we trooped on down to the Post Office to retrieve the mail that was forwarded to us from home. Nothing real exciting in the mail, but it was good to get it, anyway. The guys took a kayak ride from downtown Fairbanks to our camp, about a five mile trip, getting home just in time for dinner. We saw many birds and a couple of beaver. After dinner, we drove Debbie & Diane upriver for a couple of miles so that they could kayak back to camp. They saw a number of beaver, and a hen mallard with her flock of tiny ducklings.

Tuesday we decided we wanted popcorn for lunch, and where’s the best place for popcorn? At the movies, of course! We saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and enjoyed it immensely.

On Wednesday, Bob, Debbie and Tom took a trip in a small plane to the Arctic Circle and Point Barrow. That’s a story for our next posting.

Whitehorse to Alaska

First of all, there are two additions we've made to the Blog. If you click on the "Trip Photo Album" on the right side of the blog page, you'll find all of the pictures we've taken so far, and you can view a slideshow of them if you'd like. Also, we've updated "Our Travel Map" which you can see if you click on the link, "View Larger Map".

When we left Whitehorse, we also left the Alaska Highway. We traveled north along the Yukon River for about 300 miles to the town of Dawson, Yukon Territory, in the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush area. In 1897, gold was discovered along two tributaries of the Klondike River, which flows into the Yukon at Dawson.
The resulting gold rush brought thousands of miners, most of them over the White Pass or the Chilcoot Trail from Skagway, Alaska through Whitehorse to Dawson. Many fortunes were made in the next few years, but many miners were disappointed to find that most of the gold bearing creeks had already been claimed. Dawson was the first capital of the Yukon Territory, but the territorial government moved to Whitehorse in 1953.

We stayed two nights in Dawson in a downtown campground, spending our time checking out the numerous attractions in the area. The guys visited the No. 4 gold dredge, the largest wooden dredge in North America, and tried their hands panning for gold on a claim specifically designated for tourists. No luck!
The gals visited most of the shops in town as well as the cabins of Jack London, and Robert Service, the poet who wrote, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and many other well-known tales. There is a legend in town about a newcomer who tried to pass himself off as a ‘sourdough’, so the local miners told him that to be considered a ‘sourdough’, he had to drink a shot of whiskey with the preserved, frostbitten big toe of an unfortunate miner. He passed the challenge, and thus, a tradition was born. Debbie just had to have a ‘sourtoe’, and she talked Diane into joining her. The ‘sourtoe’ is a one-ounce shot of Yukon Jack with an ugly preserved toe resting in the glass. The toe must touch the lips for the ceremony to be legitimate, but take care to not bite the toe, because there’s a $500 fine for eating it.

As we prepared to leave town, we had to purchase enough fuel to make it into Alaska. We paid the highest price so far, $6.13 per gallon!!!


The start of the trip up the ‘Top of the World Highway’ from Dawson, begins with a free ferry ride across the Yukon River. The tiny ferry could only carry two RV’s at a time, so Tom stayed back until the next ferry trip, about 10 minutes later. While we were fueling, the gals took our cars across on the ferry, so they were waiting for us to ‘hook up’ and get underway.

The very scenic ‘Top of the World Highway’, which winds above the timberline for many miles, is seal-coated, but with lots of gravel stretches. It was damp, though, so we didn’t raise too much dust.
The highway is 79 miles long, and ends in Alaska, near the town of Chicken. Once in the US, the highway deteriorates to little more than a one-lane dirt road with steep drop-offs and hairpin turns. Chicken consists of about 3 sets of buildings, consisting of cafes, fuel pumps, gift shops and RV parking. The summer population is about 30 people, and there is no electricity except generators, phone service or running water. The merchants, who take Visa and Mastercard, have to take their machines to Tok, Alaska, about 95 miles south, so that the bank can download their transactions.

After lunch and souvenir shopping, we took off again, this time, south on the Taylor Highway for 96 miles, back to the Alaska Highway and Tok, where we spent the night. The highway from Chicken to Tok was mostly paved, but with frost heaves in the road that seem to launch the motorhomes if traversed at more than 25 mph. The very nice, wooded RV Park has a high-pressure washer wand for cleaning RV’s and cars, so we took advantage of a reasonable price and cleaned most of the dust and mud from our rigs. Diane knew of a Gift Shop Outlet with good merchandise and equally good prices, so the gals scooted over there to shop.

The following day, Saturday, I think, we left Tok and made our way the 200 miles or so to Fairbanks. Stops were made along the way at the Gerstle River Bridge, a “steel through truss-style” (that’s for you engineers) built in 1942, and dedicated to the almost 3.700 black veterans who were part of the construction of the Alaska Highway.

At that turnout, LaVan discovered that one of the tires on his “toad” was worn down to the steel cord, and so we exchanged it for the spare.

We stopped in the town of Delta Junction to see the milepost marking the end of the Alaska Highway. Delta Junction is home to a large herd of American Bison, transplanted here in the 1920’s. The Alaska Pipeline also passes through town, and the Army’s Fort Greeley is also located near here.

We arrived in Fairbanks around 2 PM, and settled in to our RV Park on the banks of the Chena River which passes through town. There is an endless stream of kayaks, canoes and power boats running up and down the river during the day (which begins with the sunrise at about 3 AM and ends at sunset at about 12:30 AM the next day). Needless to say, if you need darkness to sleep, you’re out of luck around here during the summer!

We’ll be here for five nights, seeing the sights, getting & reading the mail that’s been forwarded to us from home, and getting caught up on everything else. We’ll cover our adventures in Fairbanks in a future posting.