Alaska: Chicken and the Top of the World Highway

Leaving Tok there are two ways to the Canadian border. One is to follow the Alcan - the most traveled route - while the other takes a turn to the north on the "Top of the World Highway". It's a gravel road that goes for eighty or so miles, most of them on the US side and broadly speaking, it is a lot like the pointy end of this video:

With Greta's attitude toward things being a mixture of "if I'm bad enough at it the first time, I won't be asked to do it twice" and "well, you didn't die, did you?" it was with some relief (and I won't lie, a great deal of excitement) that I was behind the wheel for the section of road that was most likely to be outrageous fun and/or kill both of us. The road traverses ridgelines and spurs to skirt around ravines of the sort of depth that you don't consider walking away from, should you wind up visiting one.

The last place of note on the American side of the border is a small gold mining town of 39 called Chicken. The site of a minor gold rush contemporary to the Klondike find at the turn of the nineteenth century, the town owes its name to the ptarmigan bird. The locals - at least initially - wanted to call the town Ptarmigan as the bird was plentiful in the region and reasonably delicious. However, the problem that prevented this was that no one could spell it, so instead they settled on Chicken, as it kind of tasted like that. It's clear to me that by extension none of these gents counted the pterodactyl among their favourite dinosaurs.

Upon leaving Chicken we were - stupidly - racing the clock. The border shut at 8pm and we were pushing our luck as far as making it was concerned. Making matters more interesting, the road got a little more hairy as hairpins and sheerer drops were introduced as we passed through 5000 feet above.

Arriving at the border with mere minutes to spare, the Canadian official takes umbridge to the fact that I do not have a work visa while Greta does. I misread this as mock offense but over the course of a few questions become quite aware of his sincere disappointment that I am - at present - not prepared to work in his otherwise fine nation. After a few more questions we have to surrender our BB gun as it exceeds the firepower for such weapons allowed in Canada without a license. I joke that he just wanted to play with it over the campfire that night with his mates after work.

The joke sinks. He hands me a certificate outlining the weapon that I've surrendered and we depart, bound for Dawson. Safe in the knowledge that not much will be coming the other way for the remaining distance - knowing that the border is now closed - I open up a little more on the road and am suitably disgusted and terrified when we meet an RV upon exit of a particularly enjoyable switchback. Fun truly scuppered, we eventually roll down the hill, cross the Yukon River on a ferry that struggles against the current and get into Dawson City; site of the Klondike Gold Rush. The Klondike find spawned possibly the largest gold rush in history and almost certainly the most ridiculous in terms of conditions and remote nature. At any rate, it's now a little after ten which is just in time for most of the town's kitchens to be shut...