Hello, Truckers!
Our sightseeing tour continues. Today we want to show you another real place we’ve included on our map: the town of Chicken, Alaska. Here is how it looks in real life:
And here is how it looks in-game:
We took a lot of effort to make it channel the spirit of the place. It’s not a 100% accurate representation, since our in-game Alaska is a condensed version of this huge land, like “the best of” this beautiful state. And one of Alaska’s less obvious highlights is Chicken.
Chicken is an incredibly tiny and very remote town 200 miles east of Fairbanks. It has no electricity, no Internet, no plumbing, no mayor, one gravel road going through it and only about 30 year-round residents. The town was established in the 1890s by prospectors searching for gold in the nearby river.
“Why is it called CHICKEN?!”
To survive their first winter (and we all know how harsh the winters in Alaska can be), the settlers munched on the local wild poultry. No, not on chickens. On a bird by the name of Ptarmigan.
Here’s a ptarmigan!
When in 1902 a local post office was established, it required a community name, so the community wanted to honour the Ptarmigan. The problem though? It was an incredibly difficult word to spell! So, feeling incredibly self-conscious and not wanting to be the laughing stock of the local population in case they do misspell the poor bird, the residents settled on the most familiar bird of all: a Chicken. That’s where the silly name comes from.
So what is interesting about the town beside the hilarious origins of its name?
It was the second town ever to be established in Alaska. What is even more fascinating, the gold is still mined there to this day! Over a century after the infamous Gold Rush has ended, Chicken in one of the last gold towns still in operation.
Chicken also has a cute downtown, consisting of only a general store, liquor store, cafe and saloon.
The residents have embraced the town’s name: you can find a lot of chicken-related puns scattered around and every summer residents organise a music festival called Chickenstock. What’s not to love?
Would you be tempted to visit this quirky little town, either in real life or the game?