Heading east from Chicken, the 110 mile road to Dawson City turns into the Top of the World Highway. This is a description of it from a Yukon tourism source: While most roads traveling through mountains wander through lower elevations, this highway winds along the top of the mountain range for a truly breathtaking drive. The Little Gold/Poker Creek border crossing from the Yukon to Alaska is the most northern international border crossing in all of North America.
Sounds and looks beautiful, don’t you think? The rest of this post will give you a first hand experience of driving this road.
Since the immigration office opened at 8:00am Alaska time, we decided to head out at 6:30am so we would be the first in line to cross the border. It was close to a two hour drive for us to get there. The sun was shining as we started the ascent up the gravel road and said goodbye to Chicken.
The weather was nice for a while, but the dark clouds soon rolled in. Our biggest fear was a heavy rain that might turn the road into slush and mud. There are literally no guard rails and some sections were barely wide enough for two cars to pass.
As we approached the border, the drizzle began and fog settled in. The last 10 miles before entering Canada were paved, which was a reward after winding our way through the clouds.
Crossing the border was fast, but we had to drive another 70 miles to Dawson City. Goodbye Alaska! Our Milepost book says this about the road: The Canadian portion has been seal-coated, but paved sections are frequently interrupted by gravel breaks. Pot holes are prevalent after wet weather.
Hmmmm. It was all gravel. We saw zero pavement in Canada.
We were so happy to get to the west side of Dawson after four plus hours of driving, watching the road so closely, and carefully navigating hairpin curves. The next step in our journey was crossing the Yukon River by ferry. We were behind two other RVs, but there were numerous cars waiting in the car line.
Our trucks and campers were filthy dirty from the wet gravel and mud. Our pants got dirty just from stepping in and out of the truck.
Dad was in front of us and they flagged him to drive onto the ferry. They can only take two cars with one RV on board.
We were in line next, but they filled up with cars so we had to wait. The round trip process takes no less than 20 minutes. We patiently sat there for a total of about 90 minutes. Dad was already at the campground and set up by the time we got across the river.
Our GPS thought we were out in the river. They can’t go straight across because of the strong current.
Once we got off on the other side, we were just a few blocks from the campground. I was ready to relax after we got the RV set up. It had been the most stressful day of the trip so far.
This boat was sitting on the elevated bank of the riverfront beside the ferry landing, as if it was trying to welcome us.
