After the fancy town of Chicken we finally headed for the famous Top of the World Highway. Shortly after Chicken we can see a active gold mining area from the road and we stop. One of the 4 miners comes over and we can have a great chat about how this all works. The land…
Chicken is called Chicken because the original settlers, actually gold-miners, couldn’t spell Ptarmigan. They wanted to call the town Ptarmigan because these plentiful local birds filled many a pot in their camps. Ptarmigan were also called Chickens and that’s how the town got it’s name. Winter population is around 15. Summers numbers soar to 30…
Every now and then we encounter stories of the big gold rush and old gold mines. But there are also a few active mining areas and gold panning is a hobby for many americans. So we decided to visit Crow Creek Mine and learn how to pan for gold. After a short introduction we were…
So the mosquitos can’t follow us, we fled to the mountains and drove up to hatcher pass. The pass is a recreational area for anchorage with many hiking and skiing trails but is also known for his gold mine. Until it’s closure around 14 tonnes of gold were found here! You can look at the…
After a rainy day in Fairbanks and a unfortunate search for a suitable mosquito-net, I wanted to see the Yukon river. So we decided to take the highway to Circle. The first inhabitants here believed to be at the polar circle, but it is 80km further north. Still the name stayed. The Highway lead us…
After leaving the ferry in Haines, we spent the night next to the Highway to Yukon. At breakfast on a view point we were able to spot our first Moose crossing the river. Shortly after this we crossed the border to canada again and a bit later we entered the state of Yukon. After beautiful…