CHICKEN, ALASKA
So it is 77 or so miles from Tok to Chicken via moderately rough road. This is the real Alaskan frontier I would say. Along the way we saw several Caribou, most of them from afar and then there were 6 crazy yearlings that insisted on cantering in front of the jeep for about 1/2 mile on our trip to Chicken.
So, Where is and What is Chicken Alaska?
We headed to Chicken from Tok as a side trip with the Jeep. It’s roughly 77 miles of roads that are either gravel, soft muddy gravel, and pavement. It goes through some of the most affected burn areas of the 2004 Taylor Complex Fire. That fire burned 1.3 MILLION acres. The total acres burned in the whole state that year was 6.6 MILLION acres – largest recorded in Alaska history. Lightning strikes on the average of 110,000 times in a season in Alaska I have read. I would say with those statistics, we will be doing well to not be impacted by wildfires in our travels this summer.
So, Chicken is populated by about Twenty or so people in the summer. A total of Seven in the winter. There is no cell service, no electricity, except that generated individually by the businesses here of which there are three. The restrooms are porta potty style. The whole town is very clean and is surrounded by beautiful trees.
We enjoyed a great lunch at The Gold Panner/Chicken Creek RV Park. One of the best Rueben Sandwiches ever and a cup of “Chicken” Tortilla Soup, Deelish! Their RV park has 20 and 30 Amp hookups with a sani dump. Remember they provide the electricity with their own generator. They offer limited internet to their campers. I would recommend this RV park if you are taking your rig down or up this road to the Top of the World road. The gift shop there was really well stocked with unique Alaskan artisan art. We bought a few items there and then proceeded to visit the rest of the town.
Gold was discovered in the Chicken area in the 1890’s and that founded the community. The story goes that Chicken was to be named Ptarmigan after the bird the Audoban Society describes as
A hardy grouse of barren ground in the high Arctic, well adapted to harsh surroundings. Well camouflaged by white winter plumage and mottled brown summer plumage; male molts later in spring than female, so early in the breeding season he remains conspicuously white while she becomes almost invisible against the tundra.
It seems the name Ptarmigan was difficult to spell and there was some confusion so after some time, the name was changed to Chicken.
These were landlocked floating dredges. They used to operate 24 hours a day from May to November from the turn of the century to the 1950’s. This particular dredge was operated on Chicken Creek between 1959 and 1967; after it had been used on Pedro Creek outside of Fairbanks 1938 – 1959. In 1998 it was moved to the town of Chicken as a tourist attraction. It was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
Here is one of three Chicken ‘stops’ here. The Very large chicken statue at Chicken Gold Camp is 18 high by 12 feet. The interesting aspect of this sculpture is it is made entirely of recycled pieces of high school lockers from Homer. The lockers were transported to Chicken by truck at an average speed of 20 mph. Mileage, by the way, is 615 miles one way !!
I purchased some postcards and made a stop at the Chicken Post Office to mail them. We ended up there for a good 30 minutes speaking with Robin who was in charge that day. She may even be the Post Master, I’m not sure, but she was a local with more than 30 years in this area; we received the Royal Chicken welcome there, including a couple of toots of the official Rubber chicken. She was a wealth of information, patiently answering all our touristy questions and more.
Back to Tok now for one more night.
