Sunday, July 28, 2013

Hello from Ptarmig . . . wait how do you spell that?

Oops, we are actually in Chicken, Alaska.  We read a sign last night that had interesting facts about Chicken.  One of the facts was that the original settlers wanted to name the town after the local bird which "filled many pots" in this area.  Unfortunately, it seems no one could spell Ptarmigan hence Chicken was born.

We intend to drive until about 7 pm tonight.  That should get us at least to the Tombstone Territorial Park on the Dempster highway and perhaps North of that.  Assuming the Dempster is open we will not have internet access until at least Inuvik (Which is 400 miles of dirt road North of Dawson City).  Worst case, we won't have internet until we get to Whitehorse sometime towards the end of this week or beginning of next week.

A couple more interesting facts about Chicken before we head out of here.  The road is closed in the winter, only about 15 hardy souls hang in here year round.  The summer population "swells" to about 30 or so.  There are no cell phone towers here.  Kids do correspondence, no schools.  Finally, and most depressingly, there is not a flush toilet to be found!

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