16 July 2008 Tok, AK to Dawson City, Yukon

This was my last day of travel before the accident.

7.16.08 Tok,Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon
After spending a pleasant night in Tok, it was the famous, "Top of the World Highway" that was on the agenda for today's travel. Out of Tok, heading east to Rt 5 north. Once you got off the sealed road and back to gravel/dirt life becomes a bit more interesting. As we are traveling on the US sector, it is full of pot holes and just a very poorly maintained road. You pass RV vehicles going at a snail's pace as they are getting hammered by both pot holes and corrugations in the road. For once being on a bike has its advantages. Of course if you meet a fuel tanker coming the other way, the cloud of dust completely wipes out any sense of direction for the next 5-10 seconds. Well we've been on the road a bit before pulling into Chicken, Alaska. Chicken is not to be passed up as it has just about everything and nothing. The cafe has fresh baked goods that put 10lbs of weight on you just from smelling the aroma. The woman that runs the place spends a month in Maui, Hawaii during the winter as Chicken is sealed off from the outside world by snow bound roads and the population drop's to 12.

We leave Chicken continuing east to the Canadian border. The higher up we go, the road conditions improve(little). Finally reaching the border, the check of the passport and a few annal questions and you are back in Canada. Road conditions improve by a multiple of a 1000% with a mixture of sealed and gravel. The gravel is hard packed and traveling in speeds 100kph or faster is possible. Eventually you work your way down off the ridge into Dawson City. Crossing of the mighty Yukon River is a must as city of lights is only a stone throw away. I estimate the current flowing down the Yukon at a minimum of 4 knots or better. Getting the ferry, which is free, across the Yukon is a work of art. Regardless of which side the ferry leaves from, the current has the ferry at a disadvantage and its interesting watching the ferry beat its way back up river to reach the other side.

Dawson City has its annual music festible, the largest in the Yukon(whatever) this coming weekend and I can get only one night as the town is booked solid. It would have been interesting to spend another day here as it has history of mining and a bit on the wildside to read about.

Didn't spend much time in the city as it was people amassed(that can't be a word) but they did have hummas, red wine and a proper bag of chips for dinner.

The next day thougts of going north to the Arctic Circle was in the plans. This was quickly shot down from a follow biker who had just returned with another tale of bad weather coming and the road in terrible condition from rain. Unless I hear different from the vistor center in the morn, I am heading south to Whitehorse.

Norm Garon
The Grey Nomad