Yukon Quest and Northern Lights

We left our lovely campsite at the Chena River State Recreation area this morning and spent the rest of the day taking care of various errands around Fairbanks (laundry, post office, fuel-up, groceries) and doing some more sight-seeing.

From the downtown visitor center, we walked the scenic walkway along the Chena River. This ‘antler arch’ is a favourite photo stop for the tourists:

We also saw the statue honouring the flyers of the Lend-Lease program from World War II. This program saw the U.S. lend Russia planes to use in fighting Germany.

We also stopped to look at the ‘first family’ statue showing an Eskimo family, including its dog. It honours the indigenous people of the area.

Next to the ‘first family’ statue is the headquarters for the Yukon Quest. This 1,000 mile sled dog race between Fairbanks, AK and Whitehorse, YT is the toughest one run. It’s even tougher than the Iditarod since it is run in colder weather (February vs March) and has more/higher elevation changes. The headquarters is the actual location of either the start line or the finish line – it alternates between Whitehorse and Fairbanks. They have a small gift shop staffed by volunteers, including a couple of semi-retired sled dogs.

I like the bottom portion of the sign outside.

We took the cairns to the off-leash part but decided to walk them on the path by the river instead. There were too many big dogs in the park for any of us to be comfortable.

After a mediocre (to be kind) supper at the Greek cabin in Pioneer Park, we went back downtown. I wanted to see the Northern Lights presentation in the old movie theatre which is also the Ice Museum.

They let us look at the ice sculptures before the film started. They are quite spectacular. Fairbanks hosts a huge ice sculpture competition every February and some of them are preserved in glass-walled freezers in the ice museum.

The Northern Lights presentation was a wide screen, panoramic presentation of photos taken by local photographer, LeRoy Zimmerman and set to classical music. It was very beautiful.

Tomorrow, we leave Fairbanks to go to Denali National Park for five days. We’ve booked a bus excursion into the park, an ATV back-country tour and a dinner theatre. There are two nature/visitor centers, a sled dog kennel to visit and we’ll be able to ride our bikes all over the place. Motor vehicles are not allowed into the park past mile 15. You have to go by bus if you want to go further. Should be fun – I just hope that we’ll be able to see the great mountain. Mount McKinley at 20,000 feet is the highest mountain in North America but it is known for hiding itself in cloud so getting a good view of it is a rare treat.

GOLD!!!!!

Yes, we finally got to pan for gold. And we each found about $15 worth of gold flakes. I now have a bracelet with a glass vial holding our gold.

The gold panning was part of our tour of the El Dorado gold mine which we reached via a ride on a historic narrow gauge railroad. Along the train’s route, we passed through a tunnel in the permafrost. Miners have to dig through permafrost (which remains from the last iceage) to reach the gold-bearing gravel which lies just above the bedrock. Here that involves going down about 100 feet! Early miners built fires to melt the permafrost. Later they ran steam engines and steamed it. We had demonstrations of the old equipment along the train route.

Once we got to the active mine area, we were seated on benches and shown how a modern-day sluice works. First they started the water running from a reservoir up a hill, then using a back-hoe, they dumped gravel into the sluice. It washed the gravel along the trough, through finer and finer screens, tumbling it along the way. The gold sinks to the bottom and is caught on artificial turf pieces which are later washed out.

Next, the young men working there demonstrated how to pan for gold (which is really only done today to do sampling).

Then, we were handed a bag of gravel and sat down to do our own panning. It was kind of sissified, but it was real pay dirt and we did pan it and get to keep what we found. Rather than bend over a cold stream, we sat on benches with ledges to rest our arms on and the water was warm. (my kind of gold panning)

Of course, all this fun was followed up with lots of time to browse in their gift shop and enjoy cookies and coffee. We got our gold assayed in there and we put our combined gold into my bracelet. At least that way it can be seen and hopefully won't get lost.

They have found some sizeable nuggets at the El Dorado mine but the big one they had on display was from a few hundred miles away. I can’t remember how many ounces it was, but it’s worth about $70,000! Was it ever heavy!

On a completely different topic, this sign caught my eye. Apparently, the owner of this property is trying to discourage RVs from parking here.

U of A, Museum of the North

It was raining quite hard this morning so we took the city bus rather than our bikes to see the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. It is a magnificent building with many beautiful and interesting exhibits. The building is a piece of art itself!


We watched all three films they showed: "You are Here", "Winter" and "Dynamic Aurora".

I really enjoyed the wildlife photos taken by a young Japanese man who spent his adult years in Alaska (until being killed by a brown bear at age 44).

The centrepoint of the exhibits gallery was this huge brown bear:

This horse made of branches was very striking:

We spent most of the day at the museum and came home tired and foot-sore. Thank goodness for my bike and K-9 jogger so Gino and Reba could get some exercise when we got home.

Antique Autos & Fashions Museum, Fairbanks

We pedaled about 4 miles this morning to a Denny’s for breakfast. They have a huge sign proclaiming they are the furthest north Denny’s in the world. Of course, every fast food chain up here could put that sign up!

After spending a little time back at camp, we got on the bikes again for fairly long ride to see the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. It was pretty flat the whole way and the temperature pleasant, with no wind, so it was really enjoyable. The museum was wonderful! It has more than 70 rare and ‘one of a kind’ automobiles - all in absolutely beautiful condition. Vintage fashion pieces, historic photographs and films featuring automobiles in Alaska are displayed alongside the four-wheeled stars.

This 1920 Argonne is the last of only 20 produced. Note the set of golfclubs in the storage compartment:

This is a 1910 Model R Stanley Steam Roadster. It ran on steam!

1934 Packard Convertible Touring Car.

A 1933 Auburn – very colourful!

A 1904 Rambler:

A 1903 Toledo Touring Car:

This car was hand-made by an 18 yr old young man in Skagway to impress a young lady (of course). What a smart fellow. It ran for years!

They work on the cars in an area at the back of the building. Pretty well all of them run and are ‘exercised’ regularly.

There was also the first ‘snowmobile’ on display.

In one corner we were provided with period clothing to dress up in and a car to sit in for a photo. That was fun!

There were beautiful ‘Victorian’ gowns and 1930’s housedresses on display and everything in between.

This interesting chair caught my eye, too. Isn't it neat!

We spent at least two hours at the museum then got on the bikes again for the ride home. We were hungry and I had spotted a Thai restaurant on the way there so that's where we had a late lunch. It was good.

We started to go downtown for the evening, but a storm was brewing so we decided to turn around and go home. It blew over so about an hour later we rode to Sam's Sourdough Restaurant. We both enjoyed their special - hand battered fresh Alaskan cod.

Riverboat Discovery, Fairbanks

We got to the Chena River State Campground (which is right in Fairbanks) just at the right time this morning to score an electrical/water site. There are only about 10 with hook-ups in the park. We booked it for the next four nights and settled in. It is in a really nice forested area with lots of privacy and dog walking room. We can bike most everywhere we want to go.

After lunch we biked about 2.5 miles down the road to Discovery Landing for our 2.5 hour tour on the Riverboat Discovery. It is rated the #1 boat tour in North America and I can see why. The business is family run with a lot of pride. It included not only a ride on a huge sternwheeler (lots of lovely homes along the river);

but watching a bush pilot take off and land on the river right in front of us;

a visit to the home and kennels of the late Iditarod Champion Susan Butcher and her husband Dave Monson (Dave talked to us about dog sledding, the training, care and demonstrated how they train them in summer using an ATV);

Puppies:

Very nice facility:

Going for a training run pulling an ATV:

Cooling off after their run:

a visit to an Alaskan native village where they talked about their culture and showed us beautiful fur garments, cabins, fish wheels, fish smokers, a dog yard, etc.

There were beautiful flowers and some garden plots. Vegetables grow really well and really huge here due to the very long summer days.

It rained lightly most of the day, but that didn’t interfere too much with the tour. It was such a good experience that we decided to book their El Dorado train and gold mining tour for this Wednesday.

Pioneer Park, Fairbanks, AK

We had a slow start to the day after a restless night in the Wally World RV Park. The forecast was for a very hot day so we tried to get into the Chena River State Campground but all their electric sites were full. So we decided to tough it out at the Pioneer Park RV parking area. It did get to over 30 C today so it we spent a good part of the day in the motorhome with the generator and a/c running.

Pioneer Park is a really neat place in Fairbanks where they have assembled a bunch of pioneer-era buildings, an old sternwheeler and narrow guage railroad. The buildings are restored really well, like the kitchen of this house:

There were lots of interesting gift shops and artisans’ studios:

Plus playgrounds, a merry-go-round, vendors of food and other stuff, and so on. There is lots of green grass, flower beds, and water. Fran and I looked around at most everything (he particularly enjoyed the aviation museum) and we rode the little railroad.

This little engine is 112 years old. It is going to be fired up on July 4 this year:

What Pioneer Park is really well-known for is the Alaska Salmon Bake. (It was even recommended by Santa when we visited him at North Pole yesterday!) This is a terrific buffet meal which includes prime rib, salmon cooked over an alder fire, lightly breaded cod and tonight – Crab legs! Salads, roasted poatoes, dessert, beverages, too. It was an excellent meal and we both ate way too much.

After supper we took in the musical/comedy show at the Palace Theatre. It told the story of the founding of Fairbanks and included lots of really funny bits and good singing.

The dogs had been hanging out in the motorhome all day and were really happy to get to go for a walk in the park after the show. They even got to go for a swim in both the little creek in the park and the adjacent Chena River! Rolling in the fresh grass was a big hit, too. They are such good dogs.