| Campground: | Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost, Chicken. |
| Total Distance: | 6095 Miles. |
| Traveled Today: | 288 Miles. |
| Key Highlights: | Santa-Claus house, North Pole. Rika’s Landing House, Delta Junction, Moon-Lake, Tok. Chicken’s Saloon. |
Today is a turning point in our trip. Today we are starting to turn back home and head south. Fairbanks was the northern point of our journey – and will be the day before last in Alaska.
It is funny that the first town south of Fairbanks is called the North Pole – and is famous mainly as the house of Santa Clause. The North Pole is the town where the Christmas spirit leaves year around. So we paid Santa a visit and continued south.
The next stop was at Rika’s Landing Roadhouse. It is absolutely a must-stop point before Delta Junction. In today’s terms – Rika is a serial entrepreneur, and seeing how she developed this very deserted place into a trading post, hotel, telegraph – and hub of action was fascinating.
In Delta Junction (where the Alaska Highway formally finishes or starts) – we turned to the local butcher – which is a family business run by two generations of butchers. The younger one is older than me 😉 = we bought meats we don’t get elsewhere – like Elk, Yak, and Buffalo.
Just north of Tok, we stopped at the lovely Moon Lake for a short kayaking session in a very calm and friendly landscaper view. From there, the road winds to Chicken – a gold mining town that, during the winter, has only seven residents.
It’s a strange place, and to celebrate it – we went to the local saloon decorated with hundreds of baseball caps, with a fantastic atmosphere. We finished the night by drinking the surprising “Chicken Brain” shot, looking for our gold-rush experience to start tomorrow.