From Tok to the North Pole

On Saturday, June 29, we spent our first night in Alaska on the banks of the Tok River before driving on to Delta Junction. This town has had many identities over the years: gold rush town, Buffalo Center, military outpost, and farming community, to name a few. Most now know it as the official end of the Alaska Highway; it's here that the famed highway joins the Richardson Highway to complete the route to Fairbanks. So we've completed the 1422 miles of our ALCAN journey and now we start our counter-clockwise tour of the 49th state. The city of Delta Junction sits on the Delta River at the intersection of the Richardson Highway and the terminus of the Alaska Highway. The city and Delta community lie within the fertile Tanana River valley. Three mountain ranges—the White Mountains to the north, the Granite Mountains to the southeast, and the Alaska Range to the southwest—along with the Delta River to the west surround the city. We couldn't camp in the Delta State Recreation Area because their sites are too small for our RV's so we proceeded up to Big Delta Historical State Park instead.

"Big Delta" lies at the intersection of the Delta River and the Tanana Rive rat milepost 274.5 of the Richardson Highway farther north towards Fairbanks, Alaska. This site was an important crossroad for travelers, traders, and the military during the early days of the 20th century.

It was easy to get to this campground with pull-through and back-in dirt sites. The pull-throughs are basically a parking lot but we were the only two rigs. There are no hook-ups but lots of history with the roadhouse and other support buildings in the park. Unfortunately, we found all the structures were either boarded up or closed when we arrived, but we walked the grounds and read the signage regarding its historical significance.

Rika's Roadhouse is the centerpiece of Big Delta park. In 1904, entrepreneur Ben Bennett built a trading post and roadhouse near this Native winter camp to provide travelers, miners, and trappers with supplies and shelter. Bennett soon sold his holding to Daniel McCarty and it became known as the McCarty Trading Post. Fourteen non-Native people lived around the trading post by 1906.

John Hajdukovich, from Yugoslavia, arrived at Big Delta in 1906 to seek his fortune in the nearby gold-rich hills. Hajdukovich acquired the trading post and roadhouse in 1909 and had a new roadhouse built.

By 1913, the roadhouse was the center of activity for miners, traders, freighters, military personnel, hunters, and trappers. Hajdukovich lived and worked in this area for almost sixty years. He died in 1965 at age 86.

In 1917, John Hajdukovich hired Swedish-born Rika Wallen to run his business. She bought the roadhouse

in 1923 for “$10.00 and other considerations.” Rika’s Roadhouse was open year- round, catering to travelers in summer and locals in winter. Rika raised livestock and grew vegetables and fruits, which allowed her to serve fresh produce, eggs, milk, and meat. Rika ran the roadhouse until the mid-1940s; she died in 1969 and is buried on the grounds

Communication in this part of Alaska was problematic in the early 20th century. Imagine sending an email or text message and waiting one year for it to reach its intended audience and receive a response—in 1900 that is how long it took the U.S. Army in interior Alaska to communicate with their headquarters in Washington, D.C. To speed up communications, the U.S. Army built the Washington to Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS) in 1903. The telegraph station at Big Delta was named McCarty Station after the owner of the trading post.

With the park's historical building closed we decided to continue up the Richardson Highway and visit North Pole, Alaska on Sunday to see Santa. Yes, there really is a North Pole and Santa has a cool operation there too.