A town called Chicken - but no KFC (3June)





 

 


The story goes that when gold was discovered here in 1886 the inhabitants, mostly miners, suggested Ptarmigan as a suitable name. Ptarmigan, Alaska's state bird, were prevalent in the area and known as "wild chicken". However, the miners couldn't agree on the spelling so they settled on Chicken as their name.

Chicken isn't even a cross-roads. It is an RV park, a gift store, a gas station and a Chicken Burger Barn (all on the same site), plus a few historic buildings, and an airport, well an airstrip.  There is at least one operational goldmine nearby. The permanent population is alleged to reach 17 in the height of summer.

We went for a guided walk around the old mining settlement. Lots of stories. One was about a boy at the school in winter who went to the outhouse during class and didn't return.  Another boy was sent to discover what had happened.  He reported that ice had stuck the boy to the toilet seat.

The surviving old buildings are collapsing and sinking into the tundra. The problem with building here is that any structure provides shelter and causes the permsfrost beneath to warm and melt at the top. Cooking and heating compound this.  The result is that buildings gradually sink.


It's isolated. After driving 160 km from Glennallen to Tok on a road with two intersections, we briefly joined the AlCan highway and then turned off to Chicken and drove another 105 km to Chicken on a road with no intersections. Maximum speed was reduced to 50 mph but this was optimistic as much of the road had signs variously, accurately, and frequently warning Road Damage, Bumps, Dips, and Metal Surface. Nowhere in New Zealand is as isolated as Chicken, Alaska.

The journey itself was unspectacular but pretty, mostly boreal forest and tundra. At one stage we passed a pond with ripples and we saw a smallish animal swimming. We are told it was probably a beaver.





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