YUKON ROAD TRIP MILE MARKERS ARE INTERSPERSED WITH QUIRKY TOWNS, TALL TALES.

Byline: Mary S. Hartman Correspondent

``Winding in and winding out

Fills my mind with serious doubt

As to whether the lout who built this route

was going to hell or coming out!''

- Anonymous

Clearly, the author of this lyric has not driven the Alaska Highway in the last 10 years. The exasperated writer would never believe the paved roadbed, well-stocked gas marts, and bounty of motels and inns along today's Alaska Highway.

Those trailblazers, who cobbled the highway together in 1942 to provide a land-based supply line if it was needed for America's defense in World War II, never could have dreamed of the roadway's future mystique.

``I drove the Alaska Highway and survived it!'' proclaims one bumper sticker. ``I drove the Alaska Highway and loved it!'' declares another. Tell most anyone you've driven the Alaska Highway and the dialogue begins.

And why not? No matter whether you're driving a car, a giant RV or a small SUV (as we were), it's a grand adventure from Milepost Zero in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Milepost 1523 at the other end.

But where is the other end? Fairbanks, Alaska (Milepost 1523) promotes itself as the ``End of the Alaska Highway.'' But, wait: Delta Junction, Alaska, 100 miles south of Fairbanks, proclaims itself ``the official end of the Alaska Highway.'' What gives?

The Delta folks say that the 1942 road connected Dawson Creek with Delta Junction, adding that the highway north to Fairbanks was already in. The party line from Fairbanks argues that if the connection to Fairbanks hadn't already been in place, it would have been built in 1942, so the road ends in Fairbanks.

Wherever the trip ends, start at the very beginning - well before you go.

To begin with, buy a copy of Milepost magazine. This is no ordinary magazine but rather an inch-thick tome that details every mile of the north country. A glance into cars parked at motels, restaurants and service stations along the way, revealed a copy of Milepost in virtually every vehicle.

The Alaska Highway stretches from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. At that point, travelers can continue on the Alaska Highway toward Fairbanks or detour north on the Klondike Highway to Dawson City, Yukon Territory - site of the Gold Rush of 1898.

This side route is highly recommended, as it's easy to relive the gold rush here. The town is a living museum down to its dirt-packed streets and much of its earthy-looking, sometimes sagging 1890s architecture.

Eat sourdough pancakes at the Midnight Sun Hotel, stroll past Lowe's Mortuary, circa 1898, then to the Yukon Order of the Pioneers Cemetery and past author Jack London's house. Pan for gold and listen to ``The Cremation of Sam McGee.'' Finish up at Diamond Tooth Gertie's, where Gertie herself will belt out a wild ragtime tune.

Having done all this, you just might feel like one of those '98 gold-seeking sourdoughs.

But you haven't done it all until you've drunk the famed ``Sour Toe Cocktail,'' a Dawson City special. To be perfectly honest, we didn't. Drinking a Sour Toe means ordering the cocktail of your choice into which a pickled human toe is deposited. There it sits, in the bottom of your drink, looking at you.

``You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow - but the lips have gotta touch the toe.'' That's the rule as it appears in ``The Saga of the Sour Toe,'' by Capt. Dick Stevenson, a Yukon River guide.

Stevenson is a one-man publicity agent for the Sour Toe, a ``club'' that even maintains a Web site (www.sourtoecocktail.com).

While my husband and I declined this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we enjoyed the merriment when the guy at the next table in the Sour Dough Saloon touched his lips to the toe to the whoops of everyone around him.

Just where do these toes come from? People donate them - following amputations, and in one case a lawn-mower accident, Stevenson reports in his book.

But there's more to the north country than a Sour Toe. There's the hamlet of Chicken, Alaska.

``Everybody wants to go to Chicken, but nobody knows why,'' said veteran film producer John Holrod, creator of a video about Alaska's roadways. Why, indeed ... and why that name?

Chicken, a rickety four-store strip mall sitting out in the middle of nowhere, has been made famous by a young Colorado woman, Anne Hobbs, who began teaching there in 1927 and who later turned her trials and triumphs into a book, ``Tisha.''

Tisha means teacher in the Eskimo language. Once you read the book, you must see Chicken.

The name? Early settlers had a hard time pronouncing Ptarmigan, the native bird. Chicken was much easier to pronounce, and it stuck as the name for the settlement. If you need a rest stop while in town, march across the gravel parking lot to - what else - The Chicken Poop!

Chicken is not on the Alaska Highway. You reach the settlement by driving the Top of the World Highway south from Dawson City. The local population tops out at 25, but many summer days find 600 tourists eating homemade blueberry pie in the Chicken Cafe and buying souvenirs in the Chicken Emporium.

My husband and I were among the car crowd; most visitors come in by tour bus, usually as part of a Princess or Holland America cruise-ship package.

Earlier in our journey, when we first crossed from British Columbia into Yukon Territory, we didn't want to miss - heck, you can't miss - the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake.

Here in 1942 a lonely GI, Carl Lindley from Illinois, was working on the highway when he tacked a sign on a tree pointing to his hometown and noting the mileage. Others followed suit; the rest is history. Today, more than 47,000 signs - most of them bona fide city and street signs worldwide - are tacked to spindly spruce trees across the two-acre site. The fun comes in finding your hometown.

Watson Lake, population 1,800, offered another Alaska Highway moment. Driving into town, my husband began fiddling with the radio dial, searching for some news. From Canadian Broadcasting 990 came this report: ``Ladies and gentlemen, this morning eight pair of moccasins were reported stolen from Hougan's Department Store in town.'' Here the war on terrorism seemed far, far away.

A day's drive north of Watson Lake is Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon and terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. From here you can retrace the gold-seeker's path by riding the train along the Klondike Gold Rush Trail to Skagway.

And while in Whitehorse, don't miss the Beringia Museum, where Ice Age science springs to life. The dioramas are so real that the giant woolly mammoth, square-faced bear and Jefferson ground sloth appear ready to spring to life, too.

Whitehorse, a thoroughly modern town of 22,000, claims two-thirds of Yukon Territory's population. ``It's the size of town where you leave for the airport when you see the plane coming in,'' said resident Ken Bolton.

Plan to spend at least two days here - and check out the Transportation Museum along with the MacBride Museum, a showcase of arctic animals.

Farther on up Alaska Highway at Tetlin Junction, you are two days from Fairbanks. Stop first, however, in Tok, dubbed the ``Sled Dog Capital of Alaska.'' One of three families in Tok is involved in the dog business.

Don't bypass the Burnt Paw, an enterprise selling sleds, equipment - and puppies! Here's your chance to take home a cuddly Siberian husky or Alaskan malamute.

And be sure to stop in Delta Junction to have your photo taken at the ``official end of the Alaska Highway'' marker.

Fairbanks - finally - is the highway's terminus, 1,523 miles from Dawson Creek.

Visit the famed University of Alaska Museum, cruise the Chena River or catch a flight to the Arctic Circle and beyond. Then head south to Denali National Park.

You will have left the Alaska Highway behind, but don't miss Denali, an Athabascan Indian word meaning ``The High One.'' This refers to 20,320-feet-high Mount McKinley, named after the country's 25th president.

It's said only 40 percent of those who visit Denali see cloud-shrouded McKinley. We beat the odds and joined the 40 percent club.

Vast and majestic are insufficient to describe this land of the gods. Sightseers must travel into the park via bus - a comfortable (sort of) school bus.

As the bus stops to view animals - no matter how far away they are - visitors must keep their voices low, even inside the bus.

And respect is mandated for all creatures great and small. Our bus stopped often, not for moose, bear or caribou on the roadway, but for flocks of tiny ptarmigans wandering across at their own leisurely pace.

Those diminutive birds symbolize the human impact on Alaska - at least so far. Despite the thousands of travelers who annually traverse the highway, Alaska remains a place in which mankind, to date, has placed a mere thumbprint. Indeed, visitors seem to bring an ethic of conservation and preservation to the north country.

What better way to honor the Army engineers who threw together an emergency roadway in 1942 and opened the way for generations of visitors to see this great land?

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) A thick clump of birch trees stand along the Alaska Highway, top, which courses through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. Travelers can peruse the roadside mosaic that is the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, left, or pause for refreshment at a no-frills bar in Boundary, Alaska, above.

(4 -- 6) Along the Alaska Highway, the Chicken Creek Cafe, top left, welcomes travelers who have worked up an appetite taking in the area's scenery, which ranges from meadows, mountains and forests, top middle, to a log cabin residence, above.

Mary Hartman/Special to the Daily News

Map:

NORTHWEST ROAD TRIP

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist