Back to Anchorage and on to Chicken, Top of the World Hwy and Dawson City

We stayed in Anchorage for another 2 weeks while the Cummins dealership and then  Pierre worked on Esprit, this took me off our schedule and it was becoming colder and dark at night. I wanted to head back to Fairbanks and see some more of the area up there, but our time in Alaska was coming to an end and we needed to start heading south before the snow and the winter set in and with Esprit sick...well.. I was loathing to leave Alaska, so we kinda started to head back to the lower 48. We left Anchorage and drove The Glenn Highway this highway runs northeast to agricultural Palmer, then twists east along the Matanuska River Valley, sandwiched between coastal and interior mountains. We stopped at Matanuska Glaicer this is the largest one in the State that is accessible by car. 

I really wanted to do the The Egerton Highway, this is a scenic paved road leading east, from its junction with the Richardson Highway, to the small town of Chitina, then you get on the McCarthy Road, this crosses the Copper River to the Kennicott River, leaving you about 1 mile west of the town of McCarthy and 6 miles from the historic mining area of Kennicott. But by now the snows had started to fall in that area and it would not have been prudent to take Esprit there. So we stayed in Glennallen for a few days and then headed back to Tok.

We stayed in Tok because the weather was getting cold and I really wanted to see the Northern lights. While we there a lady at the grocery store told me we could head North via Chicken Alaska and then cross into Canada that way.. always up for adventure we packed up Esprit and off to Chicken we went...

In the 1930s, a local mining company abandoned the Cowden dredge east of Chicken, where it can still be found, other than that, there is not a lot to be found there, but what fun we had! Here are a few facts about Chicken, it got its name because the people couldn’t spell Ptarmigan. There are no bathrooms only outhouses, so get used to it, Chicken still has active gold mines and the population is 5. What Chicken does have is GOLD...lots and lots of it, you can pan to your hearts content and I did...I loved it! We stayed there for a week and all I did was pan for gold...fun fun fun...we went so far out in the brush that the birds were not afraid of us and while I panned for gold, they tried to steal Pierre’s sandwich, but he had no problem sharing it with them. These birds are grey jays... they are very common in Interior Alaska, and always happy to accept a handout, these fluffy gray birds in a black and white cap quickly learn that humans are an excellent source of food, even coming to the hand for a bit of bread or cheese, as they did....Such familiarity has earned it a long list of nicknames, in addition to the once official ‘Canada Jay,’ it is called the lumberjack, meat-bird, camp robber, venison-hawk, moose-bird, and gorby. But its most notable colloquial tag is a ‘whiskeyjack,’ this is a corruption of an aboriginal name, wisakadjak, this is a mischievous prankster from Algonquin mythology.

When we left Chicken we headed for Dawson City, via the Top of the World Highway, this highway is remote and it connects Dawson City, Yukon to Tok, Alaska. While most roads traveling through mountains wander through lower elevations, this highway winds along the top of the mountain range for a truly breathtaking drive. We crossed into Canada via the little Gold/Poker Creek border crossing from the Yukon to Alaska, this is the most northern international border crossing in all of North America.

We had a wonderful drive and man the scenery....Unbelievable!

In order to get to Dawson City you have to cross the Yukon River, you can do this with the George Black Ferry, this ferry service is free, or you can find a bridge but there are only 4 bridges spanning the river that can support vehicles, these are: the Lewes Bridge, the Robert Campbell Bridge, the Yukon River Bridge (Carmacks) and the Yukon River Bridge (Dalton Highway)... so we chose the ferry... it was so neat, it ended up. That when we arrived they were loading for a trip across..so we just fit right in..with no wait time.. sweet

Valdez Alaska

Valdez is located at the head of a fjord on the eastern side of Prince William Sound, it was a former gold rush town and a lot of steamship companies promoted Valdez as a better route for miners to reach the Klondike gold fields of interior Alaska, any prospectors who believed the promotion found that they had been deceived, the glacier trail in Valdez was twice as long and very steep and many men died attempting the crossing, in part by contracting scurvy during the long cold winter without adequate supplies, so Valdez fell into despair and the its port did not flourish until after the road link to Fairbanks was constructed in 1899. 

Valdez suffered huge damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and this tiny town is located near the site of the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill, so Valdez has had its share of heartbreak, but today it is one of the most important ports in Alaska, a commercial fishing port as well as a freight and ferry terminal. We came thru the ferry terminal ....that is right downtown Valdez.

I feel instantly in love with Valdez! 

It is surrounded by mountains with a vast supply of breathtaking glaciers.  

Fishing is a major industry here so they have a Hatchery, it was formed to raise, propagate and market fish and fish products, and to develop renewable fisheries resources for the benefit of all involved in the fishing industry in Alaska. The Solomon Gulch Hatchery is permitted to incubate 230 million Pink Salmon eggs and 2 million Coho salmon eggs annually. Each year starting in mid June, the Solomon Gulch hatchery awaits the return of it’s Pink salmon. August is for Coho’s. 

We were there for the return of the Pinks and it was spectacular! 

Egg take or spawning happens in late summer. Hatchery staff may spawn as many as 16,000 adult brood stock each day. These fish return to the hatchery spawning building by entering the facility using a fish ladder, which carry the fish from salt water to raceways on shore. Over the winter, the hatchery staff tends to the eggs as they hatch into alevin and settle into simulated gravel to subsist from their yolk sacs. In early spring, the fry emerge and are ready to go to out to sea... 

We took a day trip to Columbia Glacier, this glacier is a tidewater glacier that descends from the Church Mountains into Prince William Sound, this glacier is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world and has been retreating since the early 1980s. Every day 13 million tons of ice break off the face of it (called calving) this leaves huge chunks of ice..icebergs..floating about..that means getting close to it can be tricky, but we were able to get real close and we witness a calving that was incredible! 

the trip was a whole day so we saw lots of Orca, Humpbacks, Sea Lions and 

Otters 

I could have stayed here forever, we would drive to the dump every evening after all the workers left and we would hide behind the dunes and watch the brown and black bears come out and dig for food. 

I think Esprit loved it too, when we left we only made it about 20 miles before she broke down and back to Valdez we went!
if you don't have Good Sams Towing.....Get It! we did have to stay in Valdez for another week while Pierre tried to fix her, (sweet) but the waste gate on the turbo was stuck open so we could not have made out anyway...no power on the engine..we called them and they had Esprit towed to Anchorage to the Cummins dealership, we followed in Bender! The tow truck driver told me that the tow would be $3000.00 and Good Sams did pay for it!! Score...

so it was back to Anchorage for us!
I called the Cummins Dealership and they were waiting for us, they were wonderful and they let us stay with Esprit.. it took about a week for them to fix her and then we returned to the RV park we first stayed in so Pierre could do some extra work on her.
Navi was a happy camper..he loved that RV park, we could take him out everyday for walks!