Black Dog's House on Wheels: June 9, side trip to Eagle

The road to Eagle was all dirt and with some gravel spots and very narrow and curvy. In some ways the road was a little better than the Top of the World Highway because there didn't seem to be as many pot holes to dodge. We all agreed we made the right decision in not driving the motors homes to Eagle. I drove the Jeep, which made for a long day with all of us, Sadie, and our gear packed in it. The round trip was about 140 miles.

Eagle was home to Ft. Elbert and was a telegraph outpost until telephone became prominent. There isn't much in Eagle other than the "Mall" and the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Tour boats float from Dawson City some 40 miles up river and tour buses come over the mountain to supply the town with money, I mean tourists.. The population is about 170 during the summer and 140 during the winter. There is a really nice BLM camp ground which didn't appear to be open yet. It would be a great camping spot if you had a pickup truck with a slide or were tent camping..not for larger rigs mainly due to the drive.

Yes, this is the Eagle Mall. Everything sold here is made in Eagle. It is open only when the boats and buses are due to arrive. We were lucky that it was open when we were there. When we left town, the mall had closed shop. The tour boats and buses had long gone.

Favorite method of transportation around town.

Old mail delivery vehicle. I think they just use it for parades now.

This is the main old building. It is the museum now, but at one time it was the school house and court house.

Someone has a sense of humor. This wall had pictures of various prominent people and I guess one of them decided he no longer wanted his picture on the wall and this plaque was placed there instead.

Bill is 6' plus and no, a midget does not live here. Part of the old cabin is built below ground to conserve on heating costs. There are several of these old cabins around town.

They do have internet, they have to. There are no phones here and cell phone coverage doesn't work. Some luck residents do have satellite phone. This is the Eagle power plant. I guess they don't need much power, because this is a pretty small building. The library is open in afternoon and evenings to accommodate the working folks so they can use internet and stay connected.

This is the towns source of drinking water. Almost every pickup truck I saw had a big tank in the back of it and this hose was used to fill the tank up and take it back home.

This is the landing strip. Small planes take off and land here year round. Tok is the nearest big city about 200 miles by car and more than half of that are on unpaved roads.

One year ago May the small town of Eagle had a major flood. The river came up to the house you see in the picture. In fact, it has been rebuilt. The picture doesn't show the new retaining wall very well, which will keep the river from further eroding the land. There was a warm trend about the time when the ice was breaking up on the river and the ice formed an ice dam. When the dam finally broke, the dam flooded and the huge pieces of ice flooded the town causing major damage.

The ice chunks moved houses around and in some cases only the roof remained.

These trucks were smashed by the ice chunks.

I found it very heartening to see that many of the building had been repaired so quickly. These people worked together to get their community back up and living in a very short time. The hardy spirit of the Alaskans is pretty evident.

Yukon River. It would make for some great Kayaking a little later in the season. Its running pretty fast now.

On the way back to our camp sight we had some great scenery. The clouds had broken up somewhat and we only had small showers.