Alaska Travel Log - Eagle, Alaska

Travels to Eagle, Alaska 2007
Our recent travels took us to Eagle, Alaska, a quaint and historic town located on the banks of the Yukon River. If you have ever driven in Alaska, then you are familiar with the extreme distances between towns. It takes eight to nine hours of driving to get from North Pole to Eagle, depending on the weather and road conditions.
Photo Above: Looking back at mainstreet in Eagle.

Because we had made several trips to Eagle in the past (both by car and bush plane), we decided to break the trip into two segments. The first leg of our journey was from North Pole to Tok, which took four hours. When we pulled into the the motel in Tok, we spotted a truck with a dog team parked outside. We knew there would be dogs howling in the middle of the night so we asked for a room on the opposite side of the building - this proved to be a good choice, however, the dogs were quite good and didn't bark very much.
Photo Above: Mainstreet in Eagle. Eagle Cafe, mercantile store and gas, and Falcon Inn B and B at far end of mainstreet.

Whenever we visit Tok, we always include a meal at Fast Eddy's restaurant. I have always been amazed that in a town in the middle of nowhere, you can get a fresh salad from the restaurant's salad bar which features a beautiful backdrop made out of etched glass, carved into an extraordinary Alaska scene. Every time we stop at this restaurant, I am in awe of the myriad of choices from the menu, especially in a town so small. If you have ever been downriver (on the Yukon River or elsewhere), or in a small community like Eagle or Chicken for several weeks or months, and you come through Tok, it's such a pleasure to sit down and have a really good home-cooked meal, particularly if you have been camping.

To continue our journey, our second leg of the trip was from Tok to Eagle on the Taylor Highway, which took about four to four and one-half hours. On the way to Eagle, we stopped in Chicken at the Chicken Gold Camp and Outpost. There are three places to eat and buy gas in Chicken and this place is one of our favorites because they have extremely clean outhouses. They also have a cozy gift shop, Espresso bar, and some nice quality gold jewelry, made from gold taken directly from the property. You can also get delicious sandwiches and cookies, and they even have wireless Internet - who would of thought that was possible in this tiny town of 15 or so inhabitants?

One of the other popular stops in Chicken is the Chicken Cafe, mercantile store and bar. There's even a chicken coup between the buildings with - you guessed it - chickens! To learn more about Chicken's history, we recommend reading the book "Tisha" as told to Robert Specht, a true story about a young school teacher who arrived in Chicken in the late 1920s. Just a reminder... in early October the Taylor Highway closes until May and the only way into Chicken or Eagle during the winter months is by plane.

After our brief stop in Chicken, we continued along the winding, narrow dirt road to Eagle. We traveled approximately two hours from Chicken to Eagle, and our ride over American Summit near the end of the journey was pretty spectacular. After we arrived in Eagle, we stayed at the only B and B in town, the beautiful Falcon Inn B & B, a three-story log building which sits directly in front of the Yukon River. Oh yes, and Marlys cooks up a superb breakfast in the morning, which is included in the price!
Photo Above: Falcon Inn B and B

The following day, we walked around Eagle and shot several photos of the old, historic buildings. Later in the afternoon, we drove to the river bank to put in our boat to head downriver. Before we left, we spotted a big drying rack with hundreds of salmon hanging from the timbers. The chum salmon are caught in the fall to feed the dogs over the winter months. And since everything, including dog food, has to be flown in during the winter months it's very expensive, so it makes sense to use nature's bounty. Side note: Dog sledding and snowmobiles are two of the main modes of transportation during the winter months in Eagle.

Photos Above: Fish drying rack.

When we put in our boat to travel down the Yukon River it was cold and rainy. Our destination was several miles downriver where we planned to spend the night in an old cabin built back in the '70s. When we arrived at the cabin, it was 7:00pm and it was very chilly. My husband started a fire in the old barrel stove which took close to two hours before the cabin finally warmed up. In the meantime, we began boiling water which we had hauled in jugs. Dinner consisted of Styrofoam "cup-of-soup" and hot dogs. By 9:00pm when dinner was ready, we were cold and hungry, so the soup and the hot dogs tasted great. Our story continues below the book recommendation.
Photo Above: Our rustic accommodations - a cabin built circa 1970s.

Book Recommendation:
To learn more about the Yukon River, we recommend a book that was published in 2006 by local author Dan O'Neill entitled "A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River." O'Neill writes about many of the characters living along the Yukon River and briefly mentions my husband, Bob Sattler, in one of his chapters. O'Neill received the New York Times "Editor's Choice" Book Review Award and the "2006 Outstanding Alaskan of the Year Award" by the Alaska Library Association for the publication of his book.

Photos Above: Looking at the Yukon River from the cabin.

While we were waiting for dinner to be ready, I began looking around the cabin and spotted a jar of old jelly resting on the shelf next to the window. I picked up the jar and recognized my handwriting - it said October 2001. A great sense of nostalgia poured over me as I began to remember our trip to this very location five years earlier. My husband and I, and our two very young boys (one was five and the other was 14mos.) traveled to Eagle during the summer of 2002. We spent two weeks camping at this very location, which wasn't easy with a small child, but every four to five days my husband needed to take the boat back to Eagle to get supplies so he arranged for me and my little one to stay at the B and B in town. At the B and B we were able to wash up and get a decent night's rest. I have many fond memories of staying at the Falcon Inn B and B in Eagle during that summer of 2002.

With a warm meal in our tummies and the cabin toasty-warm inside, we began to grow tired very quickly. Everyone got into their sleeping bags and we turned off the lantern to go to sleep. Shortly after the room grew dark, I heard an owl hooting outside our cabin. I whispered quietly to my husband and asked him if he could hear the owl. He said yes. It was a wonderful way to finish out the day and drift off to sleep in our rustic cabin.

Photos Above: Looking at the Yukon River and the snowy hilltops from the cabin.

The next day we awoke to see snow in the high hills; it was really spectacular seeing the contrast between the gold in the trees and the freshly fallen snow. We were so grateful it hadn't snowed at our elevation. After a bowl of oatmeal, we walked down the trail and visited a nearby site. There was a fairly new cabin on the premises which had a clean outhouse. In Alaska there are many places with outhouses and finding a clean one is always appealing, especially when you are traveling in the back country.

While we were out hiking around, we spotted a nice patch of lowbush cranberries growing next to the trail. On the return trip back to our cabin, we stopped and picked cranberries for a few hours. Our puppy was so exhausted from running up and down the trails, he fell asleep and curled into a ball on the sphagnum moss, right next to the cranberry bushes. He looked so peaceful lying there on the moss.

Our puppy sleeping on the sphagnum moss.

Photos Above: Lowbush cranberries and our puppy resting on the sphagnum moss next to the cranberries.

Later in the evening, we packed up the boat and headed back up river to Eagle. Along the way, we saw a fish wheel operating on the river and stopped to visit the owner. He was packing up the freshly-caught salmon in his boat. Our boys were fascinated with the circular motion of the oversized baskets, scooping up murky river water every few seconds. We didn't have to wait long before we saw a salmon flipping inside the basket. It slid from the basket into a metal pipe piece, and then into a tub. It was really impressive to watch the fish wheel in motion and observe how it operated. Fish wheels are powered solely by the river current and nothing more.

Fish wheel on the Yukon River with closeup of basket.

Photos Above: Fish wheel on the Yukon River on left. Right hand photo shows close-up of basket.

We ended up staying at the fish wheel longer than we expected and it was getting late, so we headed back to Eagle and pulled up the boat in the same spot we had embarked from the day before. We quickly unloaded the boat, then put the boat onto the trailer and drove to the only restaurant in Eagle. The restaurant closes promptly at 7:00pm and we arrived with 15 minutes to spare; enough time to order four meals to go and fill the truck up with gas. We headed out of Eagle just after 7:00pm.

It was a long, five-hour drive back to Tok, but the highlight was seeing snow on American Summit. Our boys begged us to stop since it was the first snow they had seen since last April, so we stopped and they threw their first snowball of the season. Daylight faded away soon after we crossed American Summit and the remainder of the trip was spent driving through sections of fog in the dark. It was not a good combination, but we kept going and eventually arrived back in Tok at 11:15pm.

We overnighted at the same motel in Tok and had breakfast at Fast Eddy's restaurant in the morning before heading back to North Pole. Along the way, we spotted snow again; this time it was on the mountaintops as we drove out of Tok. We realized that winter would soon be here. As we traveled further down the highway, we saw and photographed a cow and her calf standing next to the road. We took lots of photos, so we'll try to post them at a later date. And that concludes our adventurous trip to Eagle, Alaska.

Cow moose and her calf feeding next to the highway.

Photos Above: Heading out of Tok to Fairbanks on the Alcan Highway.
Second Photo: Cow moose and her calf feeding next to highway.


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