Are we there yet??: Chickens, Gold and Whitehorse

The town of Chicken is 'perched' on the Top of the World Highway - a mostly unpaved road which is only open in summer. The nearest towns are 100 km in one direction and 150 km in the other. But every year Chicken hosts a bluegrass music festival called “Chicken Stock”! Chicken has a permanent population of 23, but for the music festival this swelled to 1500. Scaling that up it is like 3 million people turning up for Womad in New Plymouth! It all went without a hitch – a great family atmosphere with continuous music from 11 am-2.00 am on a stage that used to be an old chicken coop propped up between two vintage trucks.

We went with no expectations and mainly because of the name. Chicken does not take itself too seriously. Apparently it is called Chicken because the early miners couldn’t spell Ptarmigan (the state bird). Chicken puns abounded, the “chicken dance” was compulsory, the music great, the weather amazing and our campsite neighbours super-friendly. Just as well because the ‘parking Nazi’ sure jammed us all in. Once parked, our ‘patch’ was circled with fluro spray paint, leaving just enough room to open doors at the side and place chairs at the back. On the final morning as we were packing to leave and exchanging addresses with our new ‘close’ friends, a moose momma appeared from the nearby trees with her twin calves. She looked at us as if to say “they said you'd all be gone by now!’ and promptly walked her babies between the vans, scattering chicken stockers in all directions. We all know not to mess with the Mumma!

From Chicken it was onward over the Top of the World highway towards Dawson City in the Yukon. This highway lives up to its name – a good but unpaved road tracking the tops of the hills with uninterrupted views in all directions. We camped the night right alongside the highway. This was in line with our current policy of not driving very far in a day, taking frequent nana naps and going to bed at a ridiculously late hour because the dam sun won’t set. It was remote, wild and beautiful with no traffic as the border post closed at night and didn’t open again until the morning.

Dawson City is on the confluence Yukon and Klondike Rivers. There is no road bridge over the Yukon here, but there is a free 24 hr ferry across the fast- flowing river. The town is full of history as it was the site of the Klondike gold rush. The local first-nation population were displaced by the hordes of gold seekers who arrived, only to find that most of the gold-bearing streams were already staked. Many of the old buildings have been retained and restored and there are strict building codes for new buildings to keep the ‘frontier’ style. It boasts an excellent information centre, great walking tour, museum and numerous cafes and restaurants.

June 14 would have been Kathy’s 32^nd birthday. It was difficult being so far away from home and I was a bit teary. Definitely not what Kathy would want! So we pulled ourselves together and hit the town to celebrate her birthday. At Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Casino we watched two rounds of the show girls then Dave gambled and lost a $20 fortune on the Blackjack table while I squandered $7 at the bar! Next day we tried to win our lost fortune back by gold panning at local public claim. We even took some panning lessons first, but to no avail and 3 hours later all we had was wet feet, sore backs and no gold! But it was all good fun.

Back on the road our next destination was Whitehorse, 532 km away – and true to our travel style, involved two overnight stops along the way. Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon, with a population of about 30,000. It is also on the Yukon River and was the base for the paddle steamers which ferried freight and people up and down from Dawson City. At one time there were dozens of paddle steamers plying the river. RV tourists are the new stampede and we parked ourselves for two nights in a big Walmart parking lot along with at least 40 other vans. We took full advantage of the two beautiful sunny days, hiking and biking along the waterfront and enjoyed a very pleasant Father’s Day meal at a riverside restaurant.

It has suddenly dawned on us that we only have 20 days left before we have to have the van back in Calgary. Time to quit the nana naps and get some kilometers under our belt – 2,300 of them to be exact!