Chicken and Gold

Hi all! We finally made it to Alaska!

We are here until July 19 in various cities. We spent our first 5 nights in Tok, Alaska (pronounced Toke). There is not much there, the town hosts about 2600 people. About 2 hours away is the Top of the World Highway. That highway has limited access because it goes to and along the top of a mountain range. We decided to take it to a little junction city called Chicken. Check out my video:

After Tok, we traveled to Fairbanks. Not far from Fairbanks is the little village called

Yes, boys and girls, North Pole, Alaska does exist! It is 10 miles from our RV park and about 10 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska. We are staying at Riverview RV Park for about 2 weeks because we can. A lot of people are only staying for up to 4 days here only because they have to rush back out to the next place (usually Denali and then on to Anchorage). We figured we can hang around a little longer and "cool our jets." There is a lot to do here. There is Pioneer Park, a bunch of museums and so forth. Our neighbors next door typed us up an itinerary! That was very nice of them! They even included where to get my hair done (how did they know???) Anyhow, they both earn a little extra cash helping out the tour bus crowd downtown by giving them great places to go around here in Fairbanks. Hmm? Maybe I can do that one day and earn some yarn money? We shall see.....

One touristy thing I did was go gold panning with my travel buddy Melissa. We met in Whitehorse. She is from Houston, and she is traveling with her dog Tilly. We visited a gold dredge (called Gold Dredge 8) which was in commission until 1964. It was shut down because of EPA regulations. It produced over $1MIL in gold from 1934 to 1964. Not bad for a little place in Alaska!

So it was fun to take a train ride, walk around a gold dredge, learn how they got the gold out, and pan for gold. 

my pile of dirt; any gold in there??

add water and swirl

There's gold in that pan!!

All of those specks yielded 3 grams, which was about $18. Melissa only got about $6 worth. But it was a lot of fun. We got free cookies and hot cocoa/coffee, so you can't go wrong with that! It was a 3 hour tour, as far as the total package, so all in all it was a good day. 

They also told us about the pipeline, which runs in front of the area where you hop on the train. It runs 380 miles from Prudhoe Bay to the place where we picked up the train outside of Fairbanks, and then another 420 miles to the port at Valdez. Money was no object, so by the time the pipeline was finished in 1976, it cost $8 BILLION. Wow! But it puts out about 700K barrels of oil per day. That's pretty good. When it comes out of the ground, it is 110*F; by the time it finishes its run to the port, it is about 40*F. 

Every 6 days, they run these things through it, called a PIG. I don't know if it's a moniker for something, the guide didn't say (it probably stands for something). And every so often they run a SmartPIG (with digital instruments to check for leaks or damage in the pipe). The PIG goes through and cleans out paraffin, a by-product of petroleum. It is propelled by the petroleum. Who knew? As long as they don't put whistling pigs through it, we're okay 😆

We will be doing other things here in Fairbanks; as I said, lots of things to do. I will keep you posted.

 😉

Wild Country Yukon

Hi all! One of the big attractions here is the Yukon Wildlife Preserve. For a very reasonable price (about $20 with the exchange rate) you can see various species of wildlife. They are doing such a remarkable job, zoos tell their people to come there to see what they are doing! Awesome-sauce 😊 It is about 5K (or about 3.1 miles) in distance. You can choose to walk it or take the bus; we chose to walk it (gotta get those steps)! It took about 2 hours because you have to stop and get your pictures. Some of them are so close, like the moose, you want to reach out and pet them, but uh-uh-uh! No petting aloud! They said no alcohol either. I joked that I couldn't have a glass of wine? She said no toasting with the moose. Apparently the moose has done it before 😂 AND we had a lovely weather day to do it, too.
So come along with me and see some wild animals!

A few days later, we visited the SS Klondike. It is a riverboat that went up and down the Yukon River from 1929-1955. It is made of Douglas Fir (a readily available resource), burned it too---one cord going down the river (with the current), three cords up the river (against the current). She mainly carried ore because of the gold rush, and then they found silver, so she carried that, too. Once the Alaska Highway came through, trucks were the preferred mode of transport, so she was put in the shipyard, drydocked, and became an historic site.

Her draft was only three feet/1 meter of water, and when she got stranded, it was usually a sandbar. The paddle was in the back, so she was a "sternwheeler" (back wheeler); which was good because any debris passing by was broken up by the bow of the ship instead.

She had a crew of 23 and hauled upwards of 64 passengers, but mostly it was ore. She ran to Dawson (or Dawson City) which up until 1959 was the capital of the Yukon, and back down to Whitehorse. The trip up was 1.5 days and the trip back was 3 days. The entire season of the riverboat was 4 months in the year.

The fire man stoked the furnace with wood. They only carried what they needed to get from Point A to Point B. The main job of the boat was ore; and ore meant profit. So every spare inch was for that purpose. The fire man put a log in every 30 seconds. He worked 4 hours on, 8 hours off. It was the most grueling job on the boat. This is the front of the firebox (at the bow of the boat)

the back (a giant cauldron, basically)

the engine room at the back of the boat (stern)

So, now that we've left Whitehorse, we head downriver to pick up the ore. This is what you get:

This is galena, a lead ore containing significant amounts of silver. They hauled bags of this stuff, weighing about 25 pounds (4 on a trolley). They were pretty "cut", wouldn't you say??

This man is demonstrating for us how it was hauled

each of these bags would contain 25 pounds of ore; they would be stacked along the side of the ship,

as much as it would hold.

This is the berthing for the general crew. They slept behind the engine room; very noisy, very hot.

stores for the crew and passengers

There was also berthing for first and second class passengers. They had a dining area, too. First class passengers had their own kitchen and dining hall. 

Second class passengers had their own kitchen as well. They, however, had to eat on the deck.

Along with passengers and crew, ore and logs for fuel, food and other what-nots, the boat carried mail and luggage for those who decided to move to Whitehorse.

actual mail bags from that time 

(hope there is not still mail in it)!

It was a great guided tour and reasonably priced ($6.10CD, $4.50 USD). Our guide was very knowledgeable, and today was the first day of the season. We had an excellent weather day, even if it was a little chilly (about 56 degrees). 

Thanks for coming with us. Hope to see you soon! 😉

Welcome to Canada, eh?

Hi all!
I know it's been a while since I posted. I had a post while we were in Clackamas, staying at a BnB while we were getting some upgrades to our house. But apparently it didn't take. Here are some before and after shots.

Before:  saggy upholstery

After:  nice, tight, new upholstery

Before:  unused space

After:  storage drawers and a new countertop

Before:  fiberglass sink

After:  stainless steel sink (and it's deeper, too!)

All in all, the upgrades were well worth the wait. I was sooooo happy to get my house back and sleep in my own bed again!

After we got our house, we headed out of Clackamas, Oregon straight on the road north. After a few days, we arrived at the beginning of the Alaska Highway here at Dawson Creek, BC. Check out the video all about it.

The next stop was Fort Nelson, where we spent two days chilling out and washing the dust off of the trailer. After that, we headed towards Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Along the way, we stopped for the night in Watson Creek at Tags' RV Park. Across the street from Tags is a popular tourist destination:

This was all started when a GI working on the Alaska Highway made a sign for his hometown of Danville, Illinois. Others began making one for their hometown as well, and a tourist attraction was born! They encourage people who are coming this way to bring one of their own. Or, you can buy one and make it to put up. Me, I just took pictures. Those are free!

There are signs along the Alaska Highway, too, warning you of the dangers of wildlife hanging about. There are moose, caribou, bear, and wood bison in these areas from British Columbia through the Yukon. Sometimes there are big horn sheep. We only saw bear, moose, and bison. They are on the side of the road, so if you are the only car, you can pull off and take a quick picture. If not, you need to snap on the go. Them's the rules here.

Anyone got a bologna sandwich?

Ahh.....look at those beautiful mountains!

A girl Moose-ski (I had to be quick! As soon as she heard the truck, she turned and ran away)

Wood Bison
See? Literally on the side of the road!

And don't forget there was also beautiful scenery as well: mountains and lakes and valleys. Enjoy! Ya'll come back! 😉