Chicken sacrifice?

July 14 we went boondocking—essentially, free camping by the roadside with no services. We need no services. If fully stocked (water, food, empty ports-potty and vino—in that order) we can be self-contained—rain, shine or mosquitoes—for several days! We enjoyed wildlife on our trip out of the Arctic:a bobcat,several pika and bunnies and multiple black foxes. When we were wired at one campsite, I was able to fact check the difference between crows and ravens. I think the majority of the large black loud birds have been ravens. Ravens punctuate all the totem poles and many regional fabrics ( clothes, scarves, even leggings) with Pacific Northwest stylized birds.

Excitement on the trip to Chicken, Alaska: Just past the Canadian border, 43 miles to go to the next anything, another dashboard alert sounds. Wha?!!? We had broken every rule seasoned travelers told us before we left: “carry two spares,” (oops) “fill up with gas at every town.” We couldn’t believe we were looking at a LOW FUEL light. Judd’s elaborate car computer could cipher how many kilometers we could go on current fuel.(We had changed all the dashboard readings to metric while in Canada. Judd was even educated on litres per kilometer vs. miles per gallon and kilo Pascals vs PSI. We had to do long division before Judd got the numbers re-converted-to the Imperisl System, the calculations said our gas should last 41 miles. Okay—43 miles to go. Exciting, I figured I could walk two miles to town and find a gas containers. Happily, most of the trip to town was downhill as we had already created the Top of the World Highway. Judd worked on his fuel-economy driving skills and we coasted into the first gas station. Our Alaskan Milepost ( the travel Bible) said gas was cheaper at the airport, but not knowing how far that was, we opted to pay the premium as s lesson learned. Dang! I’m getting tired of lessons learned. When does the relaxing, sit in the sun and read s book, relaxing vacation start?

Chicken isn’t a town so much as a community: population 23 in the summer; 7 in the winter.initially, they wanted to name themselves after the plentiful bird, Ptarmigan, but no one could spell it right consistently, one Post Master just gave up and named it Chicken. all of the (4) establishments use chicken (and gold) in all of their decorating. The community holds 2 RV parks ( only one with flush toilets.) the one restaurant is attached, by the same proprietress, Susan the Pie Lady, to her one saloon, to the one liquor store and the one “mercantile emporium.” Susan also offers free camping in the parking lot out back. The community sits on Chicken Creek, a place which hoards all the paraphernalia of gold mining heyday. To Judd’s delight, tons and tonnage of rusted metal dredging equipment abounds. We did some gold panning with my retirement gift from the VA—areal metal pan. We panned some really shiny dirt. I put it carefully in my $1 vial I had ambitiously purchased in Whitehorse.

When we arrived at the saloon about 6pm (thinking it was 7pm—which it was in Yukon, or 8pm in NW Territories, Canada) we were greeted by the bartender and waitress, all in the middle of decorating and costume-making for the night’s events. They had, apparently spontaneously, decided to have a theme night and the theme was sacrificial chicken. One woman was forging a Dothraki scythe out of cardboard; the bartender who was to be the sacrificial chicken we learned later, was the ADD son of Susan the Proprietress. A man had purchased a Daniel Boone hat from the emporium and our waitress was offering all the patrons s dot of black paint on their forehead—Luke an Ash Wednesday ritusl(or something more satanic?) but messier. By dinner, my dot had melted into a poop emoji so I washed it off, Judd’s Had started to trickle into his forehead crease, but he wore it as a badge of youth. We excused ourselves to the chicken pot pie at the restaurant and went out back to camp

Land of the Midnight Sun

Back to Dawson City, Yukon, Canada  7pm - July 14.

Two long days of car time.  Tomorrow we’re planning a zero travel day to actually do stuff.

Yesterday we traveled from Inuvik, 2 hours north to Tuktoyaktuk and got our feet in the Arctic Ocean.  It wasn’t the cold so much as the mosquito hoards that shortened our dip. We had lunch at Grandma’s Kitchen—really fast food on her porch or at the campfire outback (IF the mosquitos aren’t so bad.) WE did the porch. We tried the muktuk  (Beluga whale blubber…. Sort of tastes like undercooked bacon and Judd and I shared the bison burger, although we haven’t heard there are bison up here. ) We keep hop-scotching with folks we’ve met at campgrounds or towns along the one-way gravel road.  (There’s only one way in and one way out.)  We trade flat tire stories.  We’re feeling a little bold driving, having upgraded 4 NEW 8 ply tires for the 3 flat 4 plys and just donated one good-but-used tire to the cause. (Northwinds Tire looks like a graveyard of used or not-so-used tires that someone might eventually want.)  We drove 2+ hours back south past Inuvik and camped at the last campground before the Fort MacPherson ferry. We finally shared the Lionetti wine that Judd’s Walla Walla work colleague gave us when Judd retired. It was the SO- exclusive vineyard that you could only get in by invitation or wait list, so we never actually visited (but that our back yard abutted  so we saw their vines and deer and ducks all year but never tasted their wine.) It was sweet and red with notes of mosquito repellent.  The sun did not go down but we did, to get an early start today.

Surprisingly, we got up at 6am and broke camp to get an early start on our 8 hour drive. No prob.  Unfortunately, the free ferry across the Pell River, doesn’t start until 9:15am.  So we had about 2 hours to wait. We cruised back the 10 KM to Fort MacPherson but on a Sunday morning at 7am, nothing was open. Even the gas station, convenience store or church don't start until 10:00.  We noted that all the buildings in this above-the-arctic-circle-land are more utilitarian than fashionable.  We couldn't tell the convenience stores from the warehouses, because they all look like metal buildings with no windows.  It must be horrible to heat buildings with glass windows.  I thought the school looked like a penitentiary, but remember, there are 30 days between late Dec. and Jan where the sun does not rise.  We're trying to imagine that. It's painful. We cruised by the cemetery, because one of the graves was the site of the famed Lost Patrol--a party that went off into the north and did not come back. The cemetery tour took about  6 seconds.  So we read books inside the truck cab for 2 hours at the ferry site because it was too treacherous to “walk” along the river without full mosquito regalia.

We lunched at Eagle Plains (about the half way mark south) and we continued to listen to our audio book of Games of Thrones all the way to Dawson City (another  4 hours.)  The views we’d seen going north looked entirely different going south—maybe because the gentle rains cleared some of the wildfire haze.  We saw a bobcat, several dark foxes (they must be the Arctic foxes that turn white for the winter.)  We saw pika (look THAT up) and we tried hard to avoid the little grouse that ran,     s  l  o   w    l    y, across the road... Judd spotted a lone Caribou with a rack the size of a riding lawn mower, and the promise of a heard of thousands on our tomorrow journey. Of course, the rain increased the gravel-road-dirt-mud but we opted for an RV park in town with a CAR WASH!    The mud and dust that came off the  camper and truck was astounding.  We didn't get in until 7pm but we must have done a triple dose of loonies at the car wash.  Three minutes of car wash for a loonie. (Canadian dollars are “loonies”—a two dollar coin is a twoonie.) You also get 2 minutes of hot water shower for a loonie. Who would have thought that a hot shower could mean so much after  4 days?!

Leonetti wine from Walla Walla  in the Arctic Ocean- Beaufort Sea-- Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, CANADA

Muktuk at Grandma's Kitchen

Misc pics from Judd’s perspective

Out of order pics from Judd phone—

A couple of the steamboat SSKlondike that used to haul supplies north and gold, silver and copper south along the river. Captain Greg gave us a great tour.

The Labradoodle, Copper, kept me warm the chilly day we waited to get 4new tires.

I can’t see on my phone if the other pics landed here—do you see the pics from Dawson city: an exotic cocktail recipe, Preston of the Mounties? Judd admiring engineering?

Welcome sign

Trees, where they are in the tundra, grow skinny

Inuvik

We’re about 2driving hours north of the Arctic Circle and 2driving hours south of the Arctic Sea in Inuvik,camping at Happy Valley for a second night. We had a “zero day “ of travel today, but we got many chores done. Four **NEW** tires installed—-none of those 4plywussy tires like we just had 6 flats on—-these are BF Goodrich8ply”beefy” tires. We got our propane tank refilled because, in addition to it running our fridge 24/7, it’s been cold enough the last couple nights to have the heater kick on, despite the flannel jammies and sheets and the Pendleton wool blanket. We fill up with petrol wherever we are as we never know where the next availability will be. We did laundry—all the mud splashed clothes from laying on the road checking and changing tires or getting in or out of the truck today, We rinsed off parts of the camper with the caked on centimeter of sludge that occurs when it rains for a day on 700+ kilometers of dirt road. We dined at “Inuvik’s first Chinese restaurant “ for lunch but Chinese starts at 5pm so we partook of their other specialties: Greek salad and fish and chips. We’re presently basking in the Arctic-24-hour/sun getting ready to cook dinner before we go to the Northwestern Arts Festival opening ceremonies with First Nation drummers and dancers.

All the local people have been tremendously helpful and friendly. The only rude person was a non-aboriginal  guy at the downtown Hotel when we asked about a restaurant and a wash  room.

We walked across the street from Happy Valley Campground for dinner last night at Alestine’s. Our hostess is married to the youngest of the original Alestine’s nine children (7 boys and 2 girls.) she cooks out of an old bus, buried under amass of stickers. We were going to add our Sugarloaf sticker but we didn’t have it with us.

The Igloo Church in Inuvik

Drumming in the whalebone ( much like piping in the Haggis) for opening ceremonies of the Northwest Arts Festival 

Pics from yesterday

Off to find an new tire repair place today....... options are getting scarcer but now we’re in “the mosquito capital of the world”

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Had to find the door handle thru the mud

Rain keeps the mosquitoes down but turns the dust into mud

An untenable decision

Well, it’s like that classic line in the Disney movie, Rescuers Down Under, that Judd and I still quote to each other, upon making a tough decision:  “more rattlesnakes, less quicksand.” We chose the only Canadian Highway to the Arctic Sea because of the wild fires in Alaska. We’ve since had two chinks in our windshield and double flat tires. Double. I mean two at the same time. With one spare. In the middle of the center of no where. ZERO cell service. Seriously, look it up if you can find it: We were half way between Eagle Plains, Yukon and Fort MacPherson, Northwest Territories.  How to get out of THUS mess with no AAA car service (we’re not in Kansas anymore...) .......

Last night we camped at Engineer Creek, a few kilometers outside Dawson City. Another pristine Canadian campground— we got in late afternoon as we did post office and re-supply chores in Dawson all morning. We got out of the truck to set up camp and there was a conflagration of hungry mosquitoes to usher us into the evening. We made use of our Ben’s head nets and a new fangled Thermacell mosquito retardant and made it through dinner. Judd got to wet a line and I got to pan for gold. No fish—no gold.....yet, We noted the sun lasted about 23 hours but we weren’t above the Arctic Circle yet.

Now we are.

SO, many south travelers offered to help. Do we send one of us with one tire? Do we wait til someone has capacity to take two of us and 2 tires? I packed a day pack with criticalities—raisins-Chocolate, books,  phone charger. When someone actually could portage 2 of us and two tires— we jumped in his truck at 3:00 and I started to fret that we hadn’t brought toothbrushes and old-people-pills, lest we ended up on a garage floor overnight. 

We got to the south garage by 5:00– they fixed two tires —one with TWO defects—an all time record! And a nice guy going north agreed to take us and our tires north. So here we are— in the a Arctic Circle—the sun will not set!

And that repaired tire is leaking again....

Pics to follow

Maybe

Alaska Highway to Klondike Highway

Abbreviated blogging:

We made last minute changes to the itinerary—seeing so much smoke from the Alaska wildfires obscuring the views, we decided to head for the Arctic Ocean via the Yukon. Judd spotted a black bear on our trip to Lake Laberge. The Territory campgrounds are first come/ first served so we make a point of arriving by 3;00ish. Canadian campgrounds are clean, firewood is free ( when there’s not aban on fires) and $12 Canadian! Can’t beat that. This was the first camping experience accompanied by a moo. Someone was traveling with 2 yellow Labs and a calf. I tried to get close enough to snap a pic of the calf under the picnic table but the dog stood up alert and protective.

Today I saw my first brown bear (grizzly) by the roadside — it was smallish so maybe s 2year old—no momma in sight. The REALLY scary sight was the wildfires. We had veered off the Alaskan Highway and were headed north on the Klondike Highway. To the direct west we saw beautiful fluffy white clouds but we noted they had disturbing gray plumes below them. We debated if they were thunderstorms or fire smoke. As we proceeded north, it became clear they were fires, we spotted 6 different fires at one time from our vantage point. We had no cell service so could not call he “road conditions “ number. We proceeded and it actually got clearer as we neared Dawson City. That place is a whole different story.... if there’s service at the next campground....

Foxy and Clyde on Lake Laberge

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