June 14

Eagle to Chicken

Talk about changing the birds. From Eagle to Chicken! It was a beautiful cold night. Well, night with little or no darkness. We are south of the Artic Circle but close enough that is does not get dark at this time of year. Morning temperature, 34 degrees (1 C). We started the day at the Eagle Historical Society building which was built in 1901 as the courthouse. This was the start of a three hour historical tour of the City of Eagle. Yes, it’s a city that is oldest inland city in the State. The population ebbed and flowed for many years until the adult population dipped to 9. In Alaska a city’s council requires 9 people so everyone was required to be on the city council. The population’s rebounded to close to a hundred people. Around 1900 it thrived as a gold mining town and a major port along the Yukon River downstream from Dawson City just over 100 river miles.  Chicken was founded by some miners in Dawson that did not want to be under the control of the Canadian Mounties so they traveled downstream until they crossed into Alaskan Territory founding Eagle. Well these handful of men laid out the town with lots 50’ by 100’ then they wanted people to move to Chicken. How they did it was ingenious. The traveled to Dawson City with a poke of gold. A poke is a small bag of gold. One would go into a saloon and talk about the gold riches he had found downstream from Dawson in a new town, Eagle. Later that day another of the men would head into the same saloon and with the same poke of gold talk about the gold found in Eagle. It did not take long for several men to head to Eagle. The founders had not really found gold in the Eagle area, yet it did not talk long for an actual discovery to take place. Eagle established itself as a viable Yukon River town. There was no road to Eagle.

The United State wanted to establish a great presence in Alaska so they set up a fort, Fort Eggbert in Eagle. A few famous men of history have a connection with Eagle. When the US planned a telegraph line to connect Nome with the outside world Eagle was planned as one of the major connections. A military person, 20 year old Billy Mitchell, was sent here to oversee the telegraph line construction from Eagle south to Valdez. Billy Mitchell is considered the father of the US Airforce. Another famous person with Eagle connections is Roald Admunsten, the first to reach the South Pole. Prior to being the first to make it to the South Pole (in 1913) he was on a three year journey to find the Northwest Passage to the Far East. He found the route when he met up with a whaling ship coming from San Francisco in the Artic Ocean. His ship was ice locked for the winter so he traveled by dog sled southward to Eagle to announce to the World via a 1,000 word telegram that he had found the Northwest Passage. He stayed for a couple of months in Eagle then headed back to his ship with supplies for his men.

At some point road was built to Eagle from the Top of the World Highway starting maybe a dozen miles from the US Canadian Border. We came in on the road which is 62 miles long and elevations range from around a thousand feet to close to 4,000 feet. There are plenty of switchbacks and one lane sections. It took us around 3 hours plus to complete the trip one way with an equal time on the return trip. It’s all gravel as is the part all the way to Chicken.

We thought Chicken would be a good place to do laundry and internet at an RV park. We got just about the only spot left in the park. Tomorrow starts a Bluegrass and Folk festival and the town is filling up quickly. Tickets are sold out for the festival. As for laundry, there is no place to do it in Chicken so we will try to stop in Tok to get laundry done tomorrow.