Eagle

On the last post we showed you a photo of Mary inside the Chicken Creek Saloon so I thought it would be appropriate to show you how great it looks from the outside.  We were startled each night at about 10:00 PM when their cannon went off shredding yet another ladies panties.  This is something, I hope, that you can only find in Chicken Alaska.

Chicken Creek Saloon

At 6:30 AM on Thursday we departed for our day trip to Eagle, Alaska, with high hopes of seeing some wildlife larger than the Snowshoe Hares we had been seeing.  We were disappointed until 10 miles north of Chicken on our return we saw our first Grizzly Bear, a small but good looking one.  Unfortunately it took to the bush too rapidly for me to get a photo of it.

The roads were still a bit wet from the rain but a lot drier than when we drove over from Dawson City.  The further north we got the drier they were and we could make reasonably good time.  The views from the Taylor Highway are similar to those from the Top of the World Highway, nothing short of great.  

View from Taylor Highway in the Morning

View from Taylor Highway in the Afternoon

About six miles from Eagle there are a couple of springs piped to the road so I stopped and filled my water bottle.  Right in that area we saw our first Arctic Poppies, a beautiful flower more yellow in color than those in California.

Arctic Poppy

We arrived in Eagle at 10:30 AM and made the Yukon River Visitor Center our first stop.  Eagle is a beautiful village with great little museums showing the history of life in the village.  

Eagle, Alaska

 Yukon River Visitor Center

Flowers on Grass Air Strip

After a fine, late, breakfast at the local cafe (the waitress is from Cook, MN and knows my cousin Eleanor) we dropped off some brochures that the campground in Chicken asked us to deliver at the museum and signed up for a personalized tour of the village.  For $20.00 John, who has lived in Eagle for 40 years, guided us through the many museum buildings in town adding the color of his own experience of life in Eagle.  Fort Egbert was created here to bring order to the gold rush and continued after Eagle was made the northern terminus for the telegraph line.

Fort Egbert

We stopped for a picnic dinner at Walker Fork Campground, where we got our first introduction to Alaska mosquitos, and finally arrived back at our Winnebago at 6:30 PM tired but grateful for a wonderful day.