Two more (almost) days in Fairbanks

After the first two super busy days, we relaxed a bit. On Wednesday we drove part of the Steese Highway. It is just one of those “things” that Alaskans doesn’t use highway numbers; they refer to most highways by a name instead. The roads so have numbers, for example, the Steese Highway is legally Alaska 6, but no one uses the numbers. You just have to get used to it. The Steese goes north a bit then northeast of Fairbanks. We drove it strictly as a scenic drive, using our copy of the Milepost to identify interesting sites. We drove past the Dredge #8 we visited before, and it reminded me to post the picture of our $20 in gold! As I said before, we had it mounted in a magnet that will stay on the refrigerator in the motorhome.

A few flakes

Not long after the turnoff to the Dredge, we stopped at the state historical marker for Pedro Felix, the discoverer of the gold that made Fairbanks famous. While the name sounds Hispanic, he was actually Italian, and his real name was Felice Pedron, but he seems happy to have gone by the name Felix Pedro. His discovery was made just across the road from the marker, and the site is now owned by the Pioneers of Alaska historical/social group. You can even pan for gold there! He discovered a number of other claims in the area and ended up a very wealthy man.

The Milepost is the indispensable guide to Alaska, and it noted there were two osprey nests along the side of the road. There was a big one, empty when we came by, that supposedly had originally been an eagle’s nest, but the smaller one was active. Obviously the bird thought some home improvement was in order.

Rebuilding the nest
Definitely an osprey

The scenery was lovely. The hills were gently rolling, even with the debris of placer mining all along every stream. There had been enough time that much of the debris was being reclaimed by forest. Lots of blueberries.

Skinny trees

One thing about placer mining was that it took enormous amounts of water not for the hydraulic shoves and to operate the steam engines of the mills. The Davidson Ditch was one solution to this. For about half of the 90 mile journey it was a traditional canal/ditch, but it needed to transit elevations higher than its source. It used pipes as a siphon for the other half, also using them to transit hills. This is a remaining part of the ditch showing both an above ground pipe and where one end of the pipe goes into a hill. Interesting efforts for the first big pipeline construction in Alaska! Built in the 1920s, it operated until 1952. Parts were used in a hydroelectric plant from 1958-1967 when a flood closed the plant.

Part of the Davidson Ditch above ground
Disappearing into the hill on the left

The scenery was lovely. The rain foreshadowed what we would get today.

There is rain in those hills!

As always in the wilder parts of the north, there are other engineers hard at work. I wish I had kept some sense of scale for this beaver dam. It was at least 5’ high! There are beaver ponds all over the areas we have driven both in Canada and Alaska.

The “ditch” disappearing into a hillside

We had a late breakfast at an old lodge along the road. The place was called the Chatanika Lodge, and I recommend it. Talkative folks, and family run. The roofs and some walls are covered with $1 bills. It is a “thing” to staple one to commemorate your visit.

The next day we visited Pioneer Park, an historic theme park run by the city of Fairbanks. Interesting place. It had lots of historic mining artifacts including one repurposed into a fountain.

Repurposed water canon and buckets

Remember how I said it took a lot of water to mine? Without diesel engines, even the shovels were operated on steam. Lots of wood and lots of water.

Steam powered shovel

After the mining history area, we went to the art museum. I fell in love with this wall quilt! The sign says it was Ree Nancanow and is a gift from the National Park Service. What artistry!

A fabulous quilt at the art museum

There is another part of Pioneer Park called “Frontier Town”. It is devoted to old structures originally in Fairbanks that have been moved to the park. A few are reconstructions, but most seemed to be the original buildings. Some have small museum displays inside, some are now offices or food establishments, while others are not open to the public. Here are a tiny fraction.

The Palace Hotel was an imposing structure with rooms. A bath could be had for 50 cents!

The old Palace Hotel

Kitty Hensley was a major player. She owned both a paddle wheeler and a mine. Look at that fancy two story place. I think the one next to it was a brothel. To put it mildly, they weren’t situated next to each other in their original locations!

A two story cabin!

There was also a transportation display. The Nanana is not in the best of shape, but you can still see how big these boats were. They were filled with cargo plus pushed barges with mining supplies up and down the river for years.

The Nanana plied the rivers for many years

And of course there has to be something about the railroads!

Fabulous old train car

More transportation examples were found in the parking lot. Pioneer Park allows RVs to spend a night (or few) in their parking lot, and there was quite a collection. Big fifth wheels, nice Class A and Class C rigs, a few trailers and vans. And then there were these folks who look like they are staying a while. There are grills out, chairs, tables, and at least one of the vehicles has a flat tire. At least they have a safe place to stay.

We went to Santa’s Workshop in the afternoon. Since our campground is in North Pole, Alaska, that is required! Can’t show anything there because there were, perhaps, some presents bought! Next door is the “Reindeer Flying Academy” with a nice herd of reindeer. Expensive to go in the pens, but the picture outside is free!

Reindeer at the Reindeer Flying Academy

We are in Fairbanks through tonight, then we head to Denali. We are attending “The Famous Salmon Bake” tonight with the caravan. However previous attendees had said we should order the prime rib, so we will be doing that! We are also going to a show. Both are in the grounds of Pioneer Park. I will post about that next time.

The road from hell (or Yukon Territory to Alaska)

We left Whitehorse on 30 July to head to Destruction Bay. The scenery was as lovely as anything we have seen. The place was a construction depot during the build of the Alaskan Highway. One night a massive chinook wind of 60+ mph came through and basically destroyed all the tents near the lake where the crew stayed, therefore the name! The campground was Destruction Bay Lodge and RV Park, but there wasn’t any lodge any more. The RV park was a gravel parking lot on a sloped hillside, but they had solid 30 amp power and the best views we have had from any campground plus NO BUGS.

There are 16,000’ mountains trying to hide in the smoke haze
Huge ice fields and glaciers
Lots of glaciers
Gorgeous mountains with the Kluane River below them
Trumpeter swans are making a come back in Tetsin National Wildlife Refuge
Our campground in Destruction Bay looking towards Kluane Lake
Destruction Bay campground looking to the mountains

We left early the next day to get to Tok, AK. We had been told by many people including our wagon master that this would be the worst stretch of road we would be on. Everyone was right! It started out deceivingly mild, and I rolled along at the 90 kph speed limit for a while, but then the frost heaves, pot holes, and unbelievably rough road began. I have drive  roads as bad as this, but never for as long. The bad part was perhaps 100 miles, and it was truly awful. Most of it I drove at 50 kph (35 mph), but I routinely dropped down to 20 kph. It was a long, long day. We took very few pictures since we were just concentrating on the road surface, trying to anticipate the next nastiness. As we got to the US border the road temporarily got better, but it didn’t last!

The US border patrol confiscated my eggs, but I wasn’t surprised. It was a brief stop. We took a picture at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign, but I can’t find it! Just as well because the welcome was the worst road yet! The US, in their infinite wisdom, used asphalt for the road after the border station, and it was the wrong choice for permafrost. The tar and rock used in Canada was much easier to repair, but the asphalt was pot holed the worst I have ever seen, and I have driven on I-40 west of Flagstaff, my precious bad example. The permafrost made massive ripples that went on for hundreds of feet, and the frost heaves were huge!I ended up traveling a lot of it at 15 mph! Ugh. When we got to Tok, I basically collapsed. It took a total of 7 hours to drive the 225 miles from Destruction Bay to Tok. Hardest driving I have ever done.

After Tok, we enjoyed continuing to drive , now mostly along the Tanana River. This river is HUGE, and it flows through a very large valley in numerous braids. The river is a major resting spot for migratory birds, and much of the area is protected in the Tetlin National Wildlife Preserve.

Tanana River up close
The Tanana River valley is so wide!
There is an awful lot of water heading to the Bearing Sea.

Delta Junction is the official end of the Alaska Highway, so we got the mandatory picture.

End of the road

We continue following the Tanana until we got to the Fairbanks suburb we are staying in – North Pole, AK. The ride was much easier, though there were still occasional frost heaves especially along the musket areas. I also finally got a good picture of the skinny trees that were so common. I am pretty sure they are a variety of hemlock., but feel free to correct me! They get quite tall, but the limbs are very short.

The land of skinny trees. Blow up the picture to see many more across the pond.

We are now in a really nice campground in North Pole, AK, Riverview RV Park. It is north of town in a quiet area. There are all kinds of things on the schedule here, so expect a lot of pictures coming up.