Another day in Tok

Even though we are in Tok we did a day trip to a town about one and one-half hours away. On the way there we stopped at the Tok airport - 40 Mile Air. The pilot we spoke to originally came from Maine but has been here for at least 30 years. The airport is open year round and flies supplies to villages that have no access by roads.

We then headed to Chicken - yes, that's the 'town's' name. It is about 65 miles from here but the road (Route 5 and also called the Taylor Highway) in some areas, is not in the best of shape due to frost heave - some areas were only gravel. It is a beautiful drive through the Sitz Mountains. It was built in 1953 to provide access to Eagle, Chicken, and the historic Fortymile Mining District. After Chicken the road is all gravel and goes to Eagle, Alaska and the Canadian border.

Chicken was settled by gold miners in the late 19th-century and in 1902 the local post office was established requiring a community name. Mail is flown in twice a week. Due to the abundance of ptarmigan in the area that name was suggested as the official name for the new community. However, the spelling could not be agreed on and Chicken was used to avoid embarrassment. The ptarmigan is like a chicken. A portion of Chicken, with buildings from the early 1900s and the F.E. Company Dredge No. 4 (Pedro Dredge) are listed on the National Register of Historical Places as the Chicken Historic District. Chicken is the outpost for the 40 Mile mining district. There are still active gold mines in this area. Enough gold was mined here to make it worthwhile to haul the huge gold dredges to this remote location. There are still several inactive gold dredges in the Chicken area. There are 17 inhabitants and due to mining, Chicken's population peaks during the summer. They also have an airport which we visited. The last photo is of a piece of gold that was mined from this are.Read more