12 Best Sights in Fortymile Country, Fairbanks, the Yukon, and the Interior

Finders keepers is the name of the game at the Gold Camp, where you can pan for gold and tour a historic dredge. The Pedro Dredge scooped up 55,000 ounces of gold from Chicken Creek between 1959 and 1967, but apparently plenty was left behind in the creek and elsewhere. Guests can stay in the Gold Camp's cabins, campground, or RV park, and schedule a prospecting trip to the site's mining claims. Hungry gold seekers can fill up in the café on wood-fired pizzas (offered a couple nights a week), sandwiches, and baked goods, or fuel up with an espresso or beer.

In addition to finding out what's up in Delta Junction, you can purchase an "I Drove the Alaska Highway" certificate ($3) here—technically, the highway ends in Delta because there was already a road this far from Fairbanks. Across the street is the Sullivan Roadhouse Historical Museum (ask about hours at the visitor center, but it's generally open June through August). If you're in town on a Wednesday or Saturday between mid-May and early September, check out the wonderfully named Highway's End Farmers Market, open both days from 10 to 5.

The longest-running business in town has classic wooden porches and provides multiple services. A fun place to explore, the complex includes the Chicken Creek Café, an eight-stool saloon, liquor store, and gift emporium. Free camping and overnight RV parking are available, with cabins and wall tents for rent. Gas and diesel are available from 7:30 am until the bar closes. The café serves baked wild Alaskan salmon for lunch and dinner, as well as chicken potpie and buffalo chili. Most businesses shut down from mid-September through mid-May.

The historical society offers two-to three-hour walking tours that take in historic buildings, among them Ft. Egbert, and includes tales of the famous people—among them Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen and aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell—who have passed through this historic Yukon River border town. These depart from the courthouse at 9 am daily in summer. The society also maintains an extensive archive, photo collection, and museum store stocked with regional history books and locally made items. Eagle is a sleepy town, so call ahead to schedule an appointment.

If you're even thinking of heading into the wilderness, the headquarters of the 2.5-million-acre Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve should be your first stop. Informal interpretive programs and talks take place here, and there are videos you can watch to prepare. You can also peruse maps and visit the reference library, and there are helpful books for sale.

Free gold panning and in-season tours of a historic schoolhouse are among the activities offered through this RV park's gift shop. The shop also has gas and diesel, an ATM, and free Wi-Fi. Not equipped with a full-size motorhome? Guests can also stay the night in suites, camping sites, and cabins.

This classic roadside shop has a large selection of Alaska handicrafts as well as a mounted wildlife display and a yard full of spruce-burl sculptures that photographers find hard to resist. Burls are actually caused by parasites in the living tree, and they create beautiful patterns in the wood. There's a wide selection of handmade local art, such as beadwork and carvings. Don't forget to scoop up one of about a dozen ice cream flavors at the spruce-burl counter.

The landmark Rika's Roadhouse, part of the 10-acre Big Delta State Historical Park, is a good detour for the free tours of the beautifully restored and meticulously maintained grounds, gardens, and historic buildings. In the past, roadhouses were erected at fairly regular intervals in the north, providing everything a traveler might need. Rika's, which operated from 1913 to 1947, is far and away the prettiest and best preserved of the survivors. There's some RV campsites available.

If you stop in North Pole, don't skip this shop known for its over-the-top Christmas kitsch. Look for the gigantic 42-foot Santa statue and the Christmas murals on the side of the building, as well as the year-round department-store-style display windows. Inside, you'll find toys, gifts, Alaska handicrafts, and, of course, Christmas cookies. Santa is on duty to talk to children in summer and during the holiday season. Also in summer, visit Antler Academy inside the red reindeer barn, where guests can hand feed Santa's sleigh team. And yes, you can get your mail sent with a genuine North Pole postmark, a service offered since 1952.

The 160-mile Taylor Highway runs north from the Alaska Highway at Tetlin Junction, 12 miles east of Tok. It's a narrow rough-gravel road that winds along mountain ridges and through valleys of the Fortymile River. The road passes the tiny community of Chicken and ends in Eagle at the Yukon River. This is one of only three places in Alaska where the Yukon River can be reached by road. The Top of the World Highway starts off the Taylor and leads to Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. The route is far more scenic, and shorter, than the alternative of taking the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse and then turning north, but it's another of those stretches for which it's good to make sure your insurance policy covers towing and windshield replacement. The highway is not plowed in winter, so it is snowed shut from fall to spring. If you're roughing it, know that the Bureau of Land Management also maintains three first-come, first-served campsites (as all BLM campsites are) on the Taylor Highway at Miles 49, 82, and 160; the last is located at the end of the road in Eagle.

This 700,000-acre refuge has most of the charismatic megafauna that visitors travel to Alaska to see, including black and grizzly bears, moose, Dall sheep, wolves, caribou, and tons of birds. Covering just south of the Alaska Highway east of the town of Tok all the way to the U.S.–Canada border, the refuge has a visitor center at Mile 1,229. A large deck here has spotting scopes, and inside are maps, books, and wildlife exhibits, as well as a board with information on current road conditions. At Mile 1,240 you can hike a 1-mile raised-plank boardwalk through lowland forest to scenic Hidden Lake. Basic lakefront campgrounds can be found at Miles 1,249 and 1,256 during the summer season.

To help with your planning, stop in at Tok's visitor center, which has travel information covering the entire state, as well as wildlife and natural-history exhibits. This is one of Alaska's largest info centers, and the staff is helpful.