Journey In God's Amazing Grace: July 2024

On Monday, we traveled from Chicken to Tok (pronounced like toke -- long oh sound). From what we've been told, no one knows the origin of the name, though Wikipedia has some possible sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok,_Alaska#Etymology

We continued along the Taylor Highway... we had been cautioned that there were frost heaves in the first half of the trip, and indeed, there were. I don't know if this video will give you some idea of what it was like driving Gracie over the "dips" in the road...

Carl said that he prefers hot fudge with his double dips!

This road sign seemed like it was a bit obvious, but there was no way that we were going 35MPH! More like 10-20MPH.

I had seen these signs on entering or leaving "Federal Subsistence Hunt Area" on our drive since we've been in Alaska.

Information from https://www.doi.gov/subsistence/federal-subsistence-management-program:

The Federal Subsistence Management Program is a multi-agency effort to provide the opportunity for a subsistence way of life by rural Alaskans on Federal public lands and waters while maintaining healthy populations of fish and wildlife. Subsistence fishing and hunting provide a large share of the food consumed in rural Alaska. The state's rural residents harvest about 18,000 tons of wild foods each year - an average of 295 pounds per person. Fish makes up about 56 percent of this harvest statewide. Nowhere else in the United States is there such a heavy reliance upon wild foods.

This dependence on wild resources is cultural, social and economic. Alaska's indigenous inhabitants have relied upon the traditional harvest of wild foods for thousands of years and have passed this way of life, its culture, and values down through generations. Subsistence has also become important to many non-Native Alaskans, particularly in rural Alaska.

Every once in a while (nowhere near as often as the frost heaves occurred), there would be a "BUMP" sign letting us know about it... and often, those seemed to be the least violent ones!

We stopped at a pullout where there were information signs. The Taylor Highway is the one we've been traveling since crossing into Alaska, and would be on it until we re-reached the Alaska Highway on our way to Tok.

We've been traveling in the Fortymile River Region as we've traveled in Alaska to this point.

This may be the only way we get a picture of a moose... they are evidently pretty hard to find.

We haven't seen any caribou either... maybe there's still time to be able to see both!

We have one night in Tok before heading on to Fairbanks.

We arrived at our campground in Chicken on Sunday a little after 2pm -- we had access to a Dredge tour and gold panning, so we headed out to visit the gift shop where we could sign up for the time we wanted to do each of those options.

The Pedro Dredge that we would soon be touring

The outhouses are appropriately labeled "Hens" and "Roosters".

Note: Due to the permafrost and lack of public utilities, everything in Chicken must be packed in and packed out -- fresh water and fuel is trucked in, waste water and trash is trucked out. We had electricity (20A) provided in the campground, but that was provided by a large diesel generator running nearby.

We have been told that there are 12 residents in Chicken, only 3 of whom stay year round. Two of those are the postmistress and her husband -- you might wonder (as we did) - if everyone leaves, why do they stay? Well, someone has to forward the mail to the ones who have flown south for the winter! Mike, the campground proprietor, and his wife, go to Tubec, Arizona. He said that he is pretty certain that when the current postmistress retires, the post office in Chicken will cease to operate.

Heading into the gift shop/cafe. Mike spoke with us later in the afternoon -- essentially they add on any business that they think they can handle and will make some additional funds.

We joined the Dredge tour first -- Mike was leading it...

The dredging end of the operation

The buckets that would be used to pick up the sand/gravel

We were surprised to be brought inside the dredge...

Two large Cat diesel engines that ran the dredge -- if I understood correctly, one would be in use, and the other as backup. I think he said that they would consume 600 gallons of diesel fuel a day when in operation.

I should mention that this dredge is not in operation -- Mike purchased it when the land it was sitting on in Chicken was sold and he was certain that it was going to be destroyed. They moved it (I think 3 miles - quite a labor intensive operation) to their property here at the RV park.

I think he also indicated that dredging as a technique for extracting gold is no longer used due to the negative environmental impact.

Mike took us upstairs (non-OSHA compliant stairs!) so we could see more of the insides of the dredge.

Mike is standing in the sluice table. The trommel (big round cylinder behind Mike) carries the gravel/dirt in -- it is being flushed with water and the trommel has 1/2" holes in it to let items smaller than 1/2" out onto the sluice tables (where Mike is standing). The gold is heavier than sand or gravel, so it will go to the bottom of the riffles on the sluice table and catch in the burlap that would be underneath the riffles. The last area of the trommel will release items up to 1". Since this is "placer" mining, the gold is very small; they would not anticipate getting nuggets. To the right bottom of the picture is the screen where the material captured by the burlap would be processed. Mike said that since this dredge was being used so far from the other Fairbanks operations, the team who processed the sluiced material only came every 2 weeks, and so probably some gold was lost because the sluice area became so full. In the screened area, the material was somehow combined with mercury (evidently gold and mercury make a compound) and the material that did not combine with the mercury was washed out. Then the mercury would have to be boiled off and re-captured, releasing the gold and providing the mercury to be used again. I am sure that *none* of this would be considered safe workplace practices!

This is where the waste material would be sent out the back of the dredge. One of the three workers (who also monitored the trommel for any backups) watched the waste to capture any nuggets that just might have been put in the discard.

Looking into the trommel from the end -- you may barely be able to see the holes in the surface (they look like spiral grooves) that would allow material to exit the trommel onto the sluice tables.

There is a really good video of a dredge operation on this site: https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/klondike/culture/lhn-nhs-drague4-dredge4

Winches that provided the ability to move the digging arm, as well as move the entire dredge forward in the pond.

We went up another level to the pilot house - these are the control levers for the winches that would move the dredge in the pond.

The dredge was manufactured in Yuba City, California. Readers of this blog might remember that we got stuck in Yuba City a couple of years ago when our mechanical fuel pump went out (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/05/our-tale-from-thursday.html) -- and we wondered what would bring anyone there -- turns out they were central to the gold mining equipment business, in California and beyond!

Mike also told us that, when the dredge was in operation, it was very LOUD, so communication was made via loud noises -- the key to communication was posted in the pilot house.

The control levers for moving the dredge are closest, the control levers for moving the head of the dredge are near the windows, the head of the dredge is visible out the windows. The mapping table is on the right side. Surveyors would evaluate the site before dredging and have specific information about where the gold flakes were to be found (depths in the ground). Note that this was below the permafrost level, so it required using water to melt through some of the permafrost, digging into the frozen earth - maybe 3-4' down at a time - digging all the way across the pond one way, and then return digging a little deeper going back the other way. Mike said that once the dredge started cutting across a layer, it would go all the way to the end on its own, so the pilot would have 10-15 minutes where he wouldn't have to be actively attending that operation for those few minutes.

There was a third man on regular duty on the dredge -- the oiler/greaser -- his job was to continually lubricate the components that needed it, as the dredge was running. They ran 24 hours a day, 3 shifts of 8 hours each, 7 days a week. Every two weeks, the dredge stopped for one shift for the sluice cleaners to pull the gold out -- I guess maybe a shift got a day off then? Mike didn't specifically say.

The Cat engine...

... and another view of the Cat engine.

This is where the waste material would be discarded -- as the front of the dredge swung back and forth capturing the material, the back swung back and forth depositing the waste. Around Dawson City, there are serpentine trails of waste all over the entry to the town from the south -- if you look at this Google map, you can see a satellite view.

The gold mining here declined because the US had a controlled price on gold up until 1972 -- so it became non-profitable to continue. Mike is mining now using "heavy equipment mining" - excavators, haul trucks, vibrating shaker decks. He indicated that he makes "a good living" doing it.

After the dredge tour, we proceeded over to the gold panning area. We were provided with gold panning pans and dirt that we could wash to find gold.

There was a fellow there helping us with the technique... it wasn't all that difficult, but it took a bit of patience and the gold that we found was about as big as the point of a very fine pin...

... oh well, we had fun!

At the campground was a large chicken with a signpost pointing the way to various bird-y locations...

... obligatory selfie with the chicken.

Information about the chicken:

"Eggee" - created by high school students from recycled school lockers.

I think Mike said that a high school in Homer produced the chicken and their teacher transported it 600 miles to Chicken, at about 20-30MPH for the trip. The tail feathers had to be cropped (bent) to allow it to fit under some bridges.

A fellow traveler took our picture

One side of the signpost with birdy locations and their distances "as the chicken flies".

You might wonder how the town got its name -- the story is that the local folks requested a post office and were sent an application form -- the first question was the name. Since the local creek was called Ptarmigan Creek, they thought "Ptarmigan" would be appropriate, but there was disagreement on its spelling. So they settled on "Chicken" instead!

We were treated to a "Welcome to Alaska" dinner prepared by our Fantasy ambassadors, followed by dessert (berry cobbler) provided by the campground.

Mike shared some stories as we enjoyed dessert --

For a short time in the 1920s, there was a school in Chicken -- Anne Hobbs was the school teacher. A book, Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness, by Robert Specht, tells her story.
Starlink has made a huge difference to the folks in Chicken -- particularly the business owners. They actually have communication with the outside world!
Chicken is in an area known as an unorganized part of Alaska -- made up of communities -- no towns, no government, completely isolated, no laws, no taxes (I guess he means no local laws or taxes), no utilities, no services.
For groceries, they go about 2 hours away to Tok where they get their food services order about once a week. Every 3 weeks or so they go to Costco in Fairbanks (5 hours one way).
They like to do "quirky" things -- about 18 years ago, his daughter started the Chickenstock Music Festival (https://chickenstockmusicfest.com/). It has grown to a 2000 person event (they have to cap it at no more than 2000 due to limits on Chicken's ability to accommodate any more). For the 2024 event, it sold out in 12 minutes.
Temperatures can get down to -80F in the winter. It is very dry, so little snow, and very little wind. They have "hoarfrost" on the trees that Mike said is quite beautiful.

We enjoyed our visit to Chicken, Alaska!