Last night, after arriving in Chicken and gaining an hour by moving into another time zone, we enjoyed a chicken dinner and a brief welcoming talk about the history of Chicken, which is really about gold mining on Chicken Creek and the Forty-mile River. On our first full day in Chicken we went on a tour of the historic town led by the former Superintendent of Schools.
This is Spike. When we asked him why he is called Spike, he said it was because it is his name. He led us on a fascinating, 2 1/2 hour tour of the historic buildings in the historic part of town. One interesting note, Chicken is the location of the book, Tisha, the true story of a young teacher in the Alaskan wilderness during the Gold Rush times. I remember seeing the book many times at the library, but I have never read it, but we now have a copy.
This building is the remains of the School House, on the left, and, on the right, the residence.
Main Street, historic Chicken.
A prospector’s cabin.
Spike showed us a skull of a grizzly bear and lots of other interesting artifacts of the era.
Across the road from the historic town is the modern town of Chicken.
Of course, on a hill above the town is a horror-movie-sized chicken and…
a sign post to other poultry-named towns in the world.
This afternoon we took a brief hike out along the Chicken Creek…
and found this abandoned gold-mining dredge.
Chicken Creek is on the bottom of the picture; Mosquito Creek is in the middle; and, these two merge to form the Forty-mile River which is on the left.
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