Rio Travelers: CHICKEN AND TOK ALASKA

The road from Dawson City to Chicken,AK is historically, one of the worst that you will drive on the tour through Alaska. On the Canadian side it is sort of paved, then you get to the US border at about mile 60 and it becomes gravel with pot holes and no shoulders. On top of that, it was raining and just plain miserable. The group made it to Chicken without any major problems so we celebrated with a Crazy Hat party and chicken chili prepared and provided by Wagonmaster Marie and local blueberry crumble and ice cream provided by the campground hosts. We also toured another gold dredge. In case you are wondering how Chicken got its name. Way back when the town needed a post office, therefore a name, the people wanted to name the town after the state bird which is the willow ptarmigan; well, no one could spell it. The post office is still there but the population of the town is 4. It consists of the campground owner, his wife and adult daughter and the postmistress. Incidentally, the campground owner was a successful gold miner before he owned a campground.

TOK, AK was our next stop. It is a small town on our way to Fairbanks where we got the chance to wash our "homes" and cars. We have had alot of rain so everyone was coated with mud. We also had a "LEO" which means "let's eat out". Yes we are eating again. After dinner we were entertained by some of the local talent at the campground

FYI - TOK and Chicken are "unorganized" towns so they have no services and also do not pay any taxes. Tok is one of the coldest places in Alaska since it is in the valley and 70 below zero is not uncommon