On the road with a tour – Exploring Fairbanks
It’s 05:00, and there’s hardly a cloud in the sky – it’s looking like a gorgeous day to take the Alaska Railroad to Denali National Park! Yesterday (Sunday) was our “Explore Fairbanks” day.
This is a city that takes some research if you’re travelling independently – it certainly doesn’t look like much at first glance, but there are some excellent things to see if you take the time to look. The biggest problem is that one day just isn’t nearly enough. We made a short stop at a Trans Alaska Pipeline interpretive center north of town on the way to Dredge #8, a gold dredge that still sits on the spot where it quit working in 1959, the year Alaska became a state. Following a tour of the dredge, everybody got to try their and at gold panning – here, our tour escorts Mary Stuart and Dale Renouf look for some nuggets.
I’m sure that Doc tells his wife, Monica, about how much pressure he’s under as a motorcoach driver, so I just had to include a photo of him hard at work at the dredge! 🙂
Seeing only 2 other coaches there reinforced my feeling that tourism is way down this year – though there are some bright spots such as Chicken being busy, our hotel is nearly empty.
Our major excursion was a cruise on the Riverboat Discovery, a 3½-hour tour down the Chena and Tanana Rivers, with a stop at a reproduction Indian village. The photo below shows the floatplane demonstration that’s put on shortly after leaving the dock.
Despite a rather cool and cloudy start to the day, the weather forecast of sunny with temperatures in the low 80s was quickly becoming true.
Huskies and mushing play a large role in the Riverboat tour, with a stop at Dave Monson’s kennel along the Chena, and another talk at the Indian village. Having a sled dog acting like a big baby on her lap is certainly a cute way for the musher to show people just how gentle these furry athletes are. Other talks at the village show people about reindeer, and about various aspects of Athabaskan Indian culture including hunting and trapping, and making clothing.
This was a very full day, but even though some people were really tired, our get-together before dinner was lively.
It’s time to go to breakfast before heading for the train station at 07:00 (this is one of 2 early mornings we have)…
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