Alaska - Getting There
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Dawson is still the end of the road. In order to go further you need to have your own vehicle. If you are traveling by public transportation you will have to go back to Whitehorse and the Alaska Highway. From Dawson it is possible to drive or take public transport to Inuvik, way above the Arctic Circle. This is, however, the same road up and back. With your own vehicle take a (free) ferry across the Yukon River.
In good weather the five hour drive from Dawson to Tok over the mostly unpaved Top Of The World Highway is absolutely spectacular. For much of the drive you are above the tree line with 100 mile views. Enter Alaska at the lonely Poker Creek crossing, change your watches to Alaska Time (-1 hr) drop down through Chicken (population 21 - in summer), the only settlement between Dawson and Tok. They wanted to call it Eagle, but that name had already been taken. They considered Ptarmigan after the most abundant bird in these parts - but there was no consensus on how to spell the word, so they called it Chicken (the name by which the ptarmigans were locally known). At a complex of restaurant, bar and gift shop called “Beautiful Downtown Chicken” you will find the most luxurious outhouses in Alaska.
Tok is the hub of all roads in Alaska’s interior. It is a shame that it doesn’t have a commercial airport and rental car agencies. It would be the ideal place to start an Alaska/Yukon vacation. One loop from Tok is what I have just described. Tok to Beaver Creek, Haines, ferry to Skagway, Whitehorse, Dawson and back to Tok. This loop is often half of a figure-eight trip which can be done in 14 days, though longer would be better. Obviously a loop can be started at whichever point is the most convenient.
The other half of this figure-eight has a few variants.
From Tok, I would go south via Glen Allen, with a side-trip to the ghost town of Kennicott. If time allows for a 24-hour detour. It is possible to drive in as far as McCarthy, but I would strongly advise taking the shuttle from Glen Allen or flying in from Chitina. The road beyond Chitina is along disused railroad tracks, and there are spikes all over the “road” - let someone else risk the flats!
Kennicott Glacier Lodge is a small, rustic seasonal hotel converted from the offices of the old mine. The other mine buildings are managed by the National Park Service as a National Historical Site within the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The Kennicott Glacier lies directly in front of the whole complex. If you do not fly in, then at least take a sightseeing flight with Wrangell Mountain Air. The longer flight is one of the most spectacular flight-seeing trips in the world.
Continue to Valdez (of Exxon Valdez fame), the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline. From here take the ferry across Prince William Sound to Whittier. Whittier in on the Kenai Peninsula, which makes it a jumping off point for visits to Seward and Homer, or you can go directly to Anchorage. Going overland from Valdez to Anchorage is to backtrack to Glen Allen and then over the Glen Highway to Palmer and on to Anchorage.
Commuter flights between Homer and Anchorage fly over the Harding Ice Field, a spectacular flight.
There is one railway line in Anchorage, from Seward and Whittier to Anchorage (but NO connection between Seward and Whittier), and from Anchorage via Talkeetna and Denali National Park to Fairbanks. Three separate cruise ship companies have their own double decker carriages; Holland America, Princess and Royal Celebrity. They have high, glass roofed observation cars upstairs and a restaurant downstairs. The Alaska Railroad has regular railroad carriages. The train takes longer than travel by road, but certainly the stretch between Talkeetna and Denali is more spectacular from the train than from the road.