June 15-17: Sean took care of everything while I was unwell for the entire day on the 14th: washed the truck off, laundry, dishes, cleaning inside of the motorhome etc. It was very smokey in the air in the Dawson area at this point due to wildfires along the Alaska Highway. After a good nights sleep, we packed up and headed out of Bonanza Gold RV Park toward the Dawson City Yukon River Ferry. We stayed unhooked to make loading on the ferry easier for everyone and avoid preventable mishaps.
Sean loading the motorhome while I waited in line with the truck.
Sean's perspective on the ferry.
My view
Smoke obscured most of the views on the Top of the World Hwy. Back in 2013 we took this route and the view was obscured by clouds and fog. Eventually, we will see the view, lol.
Slow dirt roads until we reach the Alaska border.
Pavement and the Alaska-US border!
Border checkpoint. Very nice fellows.
The most amazing pavement for 13 miles!
Sad that the pavement ends...
Rough dirt roads again.
We arrived to our stopping point, Walker Fork BLM Campground. This place was a nice place to dry camp for a few days. There is access to the river and gold panning in certain areas. Beware, there are many mosquitos! Unfortunately, neither of us got a picture of our campsite, but above is a drone image with the entrance of the campground on the right side of the highway.
We gave panning our best try, but came out empty handed, unfortunately. While we were busy panning and the pups having a great time romping around in the river, we were surprised by the sudden crash of thunder! We thought it wise to get out of the water and head back to the motorhome.
The hard rain started before we got back to the motorhome.
After the shower was done and gone, we went for a long walk after we stuffed ourselves with dinner.
Before we knew, we walked up the hill and got a view of part of the campground.
The next day, Sean wanted to take us to Eagle, AK.
It was a very long drive out to Eagle. I think it took us about 2 1/2 hours on rough dirt roads.
Once there, we went to the Eagle Trading Company store for a couple of items and then ate a picnic lunch on a bench facing the Yukon River. The town was very quiet and not many people out and about.
We went to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve Visitor Center & Headquarters. Everything was "closed for season".
We decided to try to see Fort Egbert, but again, everything was closed. Sean and I walked around all the buildings to see what we could so we didn't waste a trip there for no reason.
The board in the center talks about telegraph lines. We aren't sure what these large metal things were behind it.
There were dog kennels on the outside of the mule barn and the girls decided to check it out, lol.
The mule barn (white) and granary (tan & brown).
Old hospital we found on a trail. We were surprised how far the men would have had to walk to get to the hospital, lol.
We visited the Library, which also serves as the Visitor Center. The Library hours were very late, 1:30p-9p on Monday, June 16th. Apparently, if you are able to call ahead of time (no cell service), they can have someone take you on a tour, but of course while we were there no one was available and we weren't willing to stick around a few hours waiting for someone.
This was the only "gift shop" we could find for a magnet, but they didn't have any for sale. They did have keychains and Sean came up with a plan that we could attach a magnet to the back.
On the way back to our campsite it started to get darker and more rain clouds.
This made the roads super nasty! The truck accumulated more mud layers on top of the dust, lol. Once we got back to the motorhome, the rain did not hold back. It slowed down for a moment, so Sean made us hamburgers and we read books for most of the evening.
The next morning, Sean and I went to visit Chicken, AK. Before we made it to town we wanted to go on this hike to see an abandoned gold dredge on Mosquito Fork River.
Drone picture of the river.
Drone picture of someone's dredging equipment on their gold claim on the river.
We worked up a huge appetite after our hike, so we headed into town and decided to eat at Downtown Chicken.
We ordered the Chicken Pot Pie Soup and homemade pies. DELICIOUS!
The bathrooms, lol!
We missed attending Chickenstock by a couple of days. This was the stage that was still up from the festival and from what I found on Instagram, it was a raging party!
Chicken related towns and cities all over the globe and their mileage from Chicken, AK.
An old gold dredge located in town.
Chicken Creek Bridge.... this was a little scary to walk across, lol. Very bouncy when you would walk on it.
Chicken Post Office.
We went gold panning again and got rained out, again. Despite running back to the motorhome, we were soaked and the rain decided to continue for a really long hour or so. We enjoyed listening to the rain and reading for the lazy evening. We retired early for a long trip to civilization in the morning.
