Chicken, Alaska

Chicken Alaska is a small but charming village with a population of 12 during the summer and 6 during the harsh winter. It's known for its rich history in gold, being able to pan for gold, being small, and not actually being named after a chicken. Despite its small size, it's a fun place to visit with nice people and a name that makes it unique.

Gold in Chicken Creek in 1896 caused a lot of miners to come to the area in search of gold. Since that moment, over 15,000 ounces of gold were produced, and today people still pan and search for gold there. In the early 1900s, the town was established for the simple purpose of gold mining. And it stayed like that until the 2000s, when a proper development plan was created, and now the town has a total population of 12 people during the summer.

Despite the town's small size, it has a lot to offer. The town is VERY small, but they still have a cafe, gift shop, bar, bathrooms, and camping. The cafe doubles as a bakery and serves huge breakfasts, a large variety of deserts, new deserts every day, and the world's best cinnamon buns. And the bar was very unique; it had lots of hats and iteams of clothes hanging off of the ceiling. 

Chicken Alaska is not actually named after a chicken, or so we were told. Whenever we were walking around a gift shop, we asked one of the locals why chicken is called chicken. And apparently, when people were mining for gold, the workers needed something to eat. So they hunted and ate this special type of bird called a ptarmigan , and it wasn't a chicken. Well, too bad because they didn't know what it was called, and it was too hard to spell anyway, so they called the town chicken after the bird they ate.