Fairbanks Alaska 2022 spring break

Hah, you sillies. Not the northernmost point of the Earth but a place just 15 minutes north of Fairbanks where “Christmas is year round.”

We immediately spotted a stray reindeer beside a parking lot that must have wandered from Santa’s stable. Just joke, this animal appears to be a moose. Moose shed their antlers in the winter which is why none that we spotted had antlers and why some towns end up with an antler arch in their town center made of discarded antlers (my own assumption). We also learned that reindeer are actually domesticated caribou.

Here we are with Santa. After greeting him and snapping pics we chatted for a bit in between visitors. I figured it’s not often you can just hang out and talk story with this guy. Usually when we see him at the mall there’s a line around the block, and it’s in and out all business. Turns out he is pretty well knowledged in the aurora. He also told me he visited Hawaii. Don’t know why I was surprised, that man has been to every nook and cranny on the Earth. I soon realized he meant that he actually went to Hawaii for vacation a few times. Whilst talking story I also got tips from another tourist on driving up to aurora spotting area Murphy Dome , which I decided was not in the books for us just yet with my inexperienced snow road driving.

Typical Santa stuff-letters, a workshop and a red and white exterior.

After buying a memorial Christmas ornament (like we do at each place we visit), we headed back into Fairbanks and decided to get a lay of the land. Creamer’s Field happened to have the Open North American Championship Dog Sled Race happening while we were there. The other reason we went to the field was to scope out what we heard was the best place in town to look at the lights, to familiarize ourselves while it’s still daylight.

These dogs are running hard along what would be an open field during the summer. The Open North American Championship Dog Sled Race is a sprint race, 20-27 miles long each of 3 days. The dogs’ tongues were hanging all the way out and were comically flopping around in the air as they ran. Apparently dogs cool off via 1)tongue and 2)paw.

Testing, testing. The asphalt sections of road are easy to drive on. Then you get these shaved down icy patches which can get slick. Usually once you turn off to any side street it’ll look like this. I’ve never felt such a lack of control while driving. I’d be holding steady on a straightaway and for no reason slip out a bit. After driving awhile I realized sliding around is just a part of snowy roads. So is losing a bumper or two. Once again, FU Avis.

Check in! Finally. There’s something simple and gratifying about spreading all your belongings out in your temporary domicile, even if it kind of smells kind of funny and the shower diverter doesn’t quite work.

We popped into town to take a peek at the arches, play in snow and get a feel for things while Hudson slept in the car

For our first meal, (Sonic drive in doesn’t count) chowder seemed like the logical choice. The halibut was simple but amazing. It was pricey ($34) for this dive but after awhile I realized the serving was a pretty hefty hunk of fish. I also later learned that halibut prices are rising due to scarcity. *Note-If I was to repeat one meal during this trip, it would be this. So good, and sorry I didn’t take a picture.

Must stock up. Imagine a Walmart mating with a Safeway. I bring to you-Fred Meyer.

Day-2 fut around Saturday

After hitting the ground running our first day, we slept in a bit on our second. I made a breakfast of omelettes and maple links from Fred Meyers. I wanted to try reindeer sausage but Hud wouldn’t let me pull the trigger on eating an animal so close to Christmas wonder. Should have called it caribou sausage.

The test drive up to recommended viewing area Murphy Dome was eye opening. I probably should have brought up a “student driver” or “driver from Hawaii” rear window sign.

We stopped at the university animal facility to get a glimpse of a few animals. Self guided since we didn’t get tickets ahead of time.

Click the squares containing a musk ox for verification.

Then we visited the UAF campus to check out the campus and try geocaching. So tough doing this in the snow!

Lookat these hoodlums. Every time we geocache.

Based on the map board, along with anything Arctic or Native Alaskan study related, the University appears also to have integrated its police and firefighter schools as a part of its on campus curriculum.

Adjacent to the climbing wall is a sledding hill. We brought our minimalist sled which we picked up several trips before in Bainbridge, Seattle for $5! I’ve tried to throw it away a few times yet it still proves useful.

We dropped off June at Immaculate Conception Saturday mass and we went to Safeway for some stuff for our daylong trip the next day. Paxton is keeping his Costco smoothie cool in between parking lanes while we go inside.

On the way home we took another swing at geocaching, this time nearby our place. “Fee, fi, pho, fail” sometimes all you can do is try. Did not eat here, by the way.

At this point it was late in the afternoon and we were planning to head back and go out to the ice sculptures but thought that having a cocktail and making a home cooked salmon dinner might be better.

Then June got an alert on her My Aurora app at around 1030pm.

Oh snap! We geared up as quickly as possible and headed out to try our luck at Creamer’s Field. We hiked out into the snowy fields with headlamps and waited. In the snow. In the dark. Into the unknown. Well not that unknown seeing as we went to the field earlier to spock it out.

I was hoping the only Aurora lights we saw weren’t the ones printed on the cozee I bought at Walmart earlier.

We wandered out into the field until we reached a clearing. As I snapped pictures I kept hoping I was seeing the aurora but I wasn’t quite sure.

Then it happened! As light mist quickly and magically appeared across the sky we heard distant yells from elsewhere in the refuge from other excited viewers which confirmed my suspicions. Excited, I gave my best redneck yell. Hearing the excited calls from other unseen areas of the park felt like The Hunger Games scene where they do the mockingjay call. Off to our side I heard a trotting thumping sound and as I glanced over I saw a large dark animal running away diagonally from us. I couldn’t quite tell what it was at first, then when I focused my headlamp on it I realized it was a moose. Holy hell. Good thing it didn’t decide to simply trample the heck out of us. Moose related deaths are higher than grizzly and black bear deaths combined, probably due to their relative population and weight to car ratio but still.

With a renewed sense of life we stood around snapping pictures with half numb fingers and toes as the mist changed shape and form every few minutes. With the naked eye it looked somewhat white colored but when we set our phone cameras to night mode with no flash this is what we got.

Cue heavenly sounds in the background!

Spotting the Aurora Borealis

One way to measure your chances of seeing the lights is by monitoring something called the KP index. The KP index measures disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field and is one of the key indicators of aurora activity. The other things to keep in mind are cloud cover, terrain-ie mountains obstructing your view and ambient light from the city. This makes driving out a few miles more desireable in case the Aurora is weak. That also means having to drive those ice roads in the dark. Tonight the index was low which meant possibly relatively poor viewing conditions and the forecast was also cloudy but since this is the whole reason we’re in Fairbanks, we were planning on going out as often as we could handle. I’m so glad we went tonight. At our later visits it seemed most nights the clouds would come and go but be pretty clear in the late late hours. This might be a Fairbanks thing. Typically you should expect to aurora hunt between the hours of 10pm and 3 am Alaskan time.

We also used an app which further predicted chances of viewing based on location. It would predict 30 minutes out so you could tell if the Aurora was getting stronger or weaker. I highly recommend the My Aurora Forecast free app.

Day 3-Sunday field trip all day North to the Arctic Circle.

And I mean all day. This morning we met up for our tour nearby the airport at 930am. When all was said and done I ended up bringing the car home at 4:30 am the next day!

At this point I’ll give my tldr; which is for amount of time we spent on this tour, I wish we spent more time stopped at each area. It kind of felt a bit rushed, but I guess that’s what happens when you have to drive 200 miles each way in the snow.

We loaded up in a roughly 26 person van and began driving. Then we drove and drove more. Our first stop…

… Was the Dalton highway sign, named after a petroleum and mining engineer. He also spent some time in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor working with the Navy. Shows like Ice Road Truckers were also filmed in the area.

Next, a close up glimpse of the Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline. 800 miles of contraversy, energy independence and palm greasing politics. It was one of those unstoppable large scale events that forced it’s way into Alaska whether it wanted it or not. Built in the 70s with Japanese manufactured piping partially over permafrost (and in-earth in some places) to move crude oil from it’s frozen source up north down to a warmer shipping port-Valdez. Now with Ukraine and gas prices going up the pipeline was even more relevant to our visit.

We stopped at the Yukon river where we ate our homemade sandwiches of salami or salmon. We walked down to the river turned roadway where we saw a snow boat and where the boys decided to brawl. Got a good vid but won’t post it for obvious reasons as I am currently in the running for the #goodparentingaward.

After a mere 8 hour jaunt from city center we ended up at the Arctic Circle where we got certificates in case anyone questions whether we made it or not. I’ll keep it in my wallet next to my vaccination card.

Roll out the red carpet! This is the furthest north on the planet we’ve ever been and maybe the furthest north we ever plan to be. We celebrated with hot drinks, a family pic and a visit to the snow covered loo.

After the visit to the circle, I was also looking forward to another attempt at seeing the aurora. Besides being a different day and different index, the difference between yesterday and today was that we were further from town so there would be less light pollution. When we pulled to the homestead cabin/base at night, it looked like a cabin from a horror movie complete with dim red lights. (red lighting is for less light pollution for picture taking).

Even the bathrooms look spooky. Actually there were really nice inside, no pics though. Would be kinda weird.

But, once you opened the door, it was a welcoming, well lit log cabin complete with a fire, pelts on the wall, hot drinks and multiple tripods for use.

Outside you could see the stars…

…and the aurora. Alaskans don’t call it the northern lights just like how the French don’t call pomme frites french fries.

Simply amazing.

Couple of things I learned- phone batteries go down quickly in the cold, and that for best pics, turn off night mode, flash off, crank it up to exposure time 10 seconds and hold still. Better yet, use a tripod.

We stuck around till 2-2:30am and began driving back to town.

The lights were just aight. Our driver (named Dallas) said he’d keep his eyes open along the way back but nothing really showed. Tonight’s lesson was that even though we were way the heck out away from the city, it didn’t guarantee we’d be seeing a spectacular show.

5:30am- bedtime.

Jiminy crickets what are we doing here?

Monday-wake up at noon.

Recovery day. I’m going to be out of whack when I get back home after doing these late night stay-ups. We had Costco ramen in our room and headed out to look for a few specific items-snowball makers and an Ulu (native kitchen knife).

Back to Fred Meyers to look for the squishmallow stuffed animal cat that Hudson wanted on our first visit here and I told him only if it was less than 10 bucks. Well it wasn’t and he ended up being all obsessed with it. Fast-forward and now we have another stuffed animal in our ranks.

Thoughts on Fairbanks at this point?

I’m gonna be honest here and just say that from a visitor’s perspective Fairbanks is a pretty bland town. It’s surprisingly plain and difficult to find off the cuff activities to occupy one’s time and I was imagining to have learned more about the native Alaskan culture just by putzing around town and doing everyday things like you do back in Hawaii. I thought there would be more of a casual intermixing of native and western cultures. Why is this? Maybe the native population is content in living a completely separate life elsewhere in Alaska. There is plenty of room to spare, and land is relatively cheap so you have less of the rat race vibe.

Not that Fairbanks cares what I think. At heart it’s got a survivor soul that focuses on providing heat, gathering food and playing in the snow.

I’m just surprised that there weren’t more tourist trap type shops around town. Maybe not many tourists come here period. Well at least there’s snow.

More food, this time I got pics.

After dinner we planned to check out the ice sculpture competition but since we only had an hour till close we decided to go visit another day. Instead we drove partway up to the dome and stayed until 230am with no luck.

Later I noticed the band was over us and I took a chance alone going to Creamers Fields for a 16% probability of viewing the lights. Oh well, dems the breaks.

Tuesday-the days are beginning to blend together…

…especially with all the staying out late for aurora spotting.

Museum of the North, University of Alaska Fairbanks

If you’re going to learn about Alaskan history while in Fairbanks, it might have to be at the museum. The Museum of the North has exhibits on wildlife and European history as well as its indigenous makeup, which interestingly consists of two primary native groups which can largely be broken down to (two) Eskimo and (three) native Indian groups, with each main group being different cultures entirely. It is on the university campus.

The Indian Halibut fishing rig (left with barb) had a symbolic carving facing downwards and the fish would bite at the bait in the center near the barb. Up top was a float was in the shape of a waterfowl. When the fisherman saw the float move, her or she would pull up the fish. Yum, halibut.

Am I that old? I just saw some of my camping equipment in a museum. OK, answered my own question.

Next we drove across campus to see bus 142, the actual bus that recent graduate (at the time in 1992) turned spiritual wanderer Christopher McCandless lived in and died in after 113 days. It became a book in 1997 and Sean Penn made the story into a movie-Into The Wild. We found the bus relocated to the high bays of the engineering department on campus. It was moved because too many people were getting hurt/killed going out to look for the bus.

Then we hit the sledding slopes again on the University campus where we temporarily adopted an abandoned toboggan.

Then back to the hotel to pack up for…

Chena hot springs tour!

Hot springs, ice museum, dinner, ice bar and aurora viewing. We did get snowfall today and the cloud forecast was at 100% earlier. Fingers crossed. We also thought we forgot June’s underlayers. Uh oh, it’s ok. (Turns out we really didn’t forget them)

Chena hot springs. Most of the road out is slick ice. Wet and shiny. Wherever our tour van goes over 20 we start to go sideways just a little. Nonetheless I get the feeling this tour will be pretty enjoyable. The doing stuff to driving ratio should be better than our artic circle tour.

The hot springs resort is actually a pretty nice oasis relative to the other sights we’ve taken in so far. It feels-how shall I say, a bit touristy, welcoming and interesting to the nonnative visitor which I never would have thought would be desireable, but for Fairbanks, it was. The facility uses geothermal energy to heat the ground and even has its own snow covered greenhouse to produce some of the dinner greens.

Dotted around the place are cottages with snow lined pathways.

First we visited the “ice museum,” a giant refrigerated room/warehouse completely decorated with ice sculptures, ice furnishings and of course an ice bar. Before the mechanical refrigeration, all the decor would melt come summertime.

You can even stay in one of two rooms at the low cost of $600 a night. You’d really have to love ice to do this.

Ice chapel. They do a handful of weddings here each year. The couple who sculpted most of the interior got married here. The couple also competes regularly at the World Ice Art Championships back in town.

Outside an airplane is supported high above the compound. Points for style, “A” for effort.

Some of the restaurant fare is a bit pricey. Thai curry is $35, the halibut and chips, halibut with rice or salmon with potatoes each run around $40 which seems reasonable and a few staff members are outwardly surly. Still it is nice to have food on premises.

After dinner I found some ear pods on a bench in the waiting area. June made me turn them into lost and found. 😢 Hopefully they find their way to their owner and not into the hands of Surly McNeedanewjob at the receptionist area because I found them fair and square.

After dinner we went to the hot tub area to test out the water proofedness of my iPhone. Indoors is a pool and pair of jacuzzis. Outside is a large spring with multicolored lights and a hot tub up above where assholes can fling “warning wet floor” signs down into the lower hot spring near unsuspecting visitors and not get in trouble. You can rent lockers for 50¢ so bring quarters.

Although the surrounding area has no cell reception the hot springs do have free wifi and when I checked the aurora app it said things were potentially going to get better than we saw yesterday.

First we looked at the sky out back of the resort. Look at those red colors!

Then our guide, Bill suggested we go drive out a little ways in search of less ambient light and fewer people with their phones and headlamps and headlights.

Holy shizbang! Here we saw the most spectacular lights of our trip and the greatest variety of lights in the sky so far. I even got to watch the lights dance around, which was simply amazing. We drove further to try yet another stop and had limited success before heading home. It was slow going down the icy road and I think we wasted crucial time travelling.

Now it’s 2am and we’re on our way home. Made it past the ice and are on grippier ground than before. The kids and June are probably sleeping in the seat in front of me.

Git up, git inside and degear.

Recovery day. Take a break

Or first stop was the Fountainhead Auto Museum, a collection of pre-ww2 vehicles located on the property of the Wedgewood hotel we are staying at.

The cars are in amazing shape. Fully restored and probably better than new. What blows my mind is how the restorer(s) obtain all the rare parts.

This car’s got 3 rows of seating, each with its own windshield. The back row has a microphone that looks like a showerhead to talk to the driver up front.

Here’s a steam engine car. There’s also an early electric car too and apparently all of the cars in the museum (except for 3) get started and run every so often.

After the museum we did a quick stop at the fitness center, you know, in case one day during the trip I may want to exercise…

Then we went to grab lunch at The Cookie Jar. This place has a diner vibe with a baked goods counter up front. Me and Paxton shared the country fried steak which was a slab of prime rib battered and fried with potatoes and two eggs. Afterwards the kids each got a square of caramel and June picked a batch of cookies and giant cinnamon muffin.

Strange, I actually managed to take this picture before eating it. Must not have been that hungry.

After lunch we went to look for a nice Ulu (traditional Alaskan knife) but later decided I’d get a cheaper one from Wally world as a starter knife. Plus I have a feeling a chisel edge blade may not be my thing.

These guys emphasize “buy local.”

We then went back to check out the world championships of ice sculptures that we passed on a few days before. They had an array of things ice ranging from as you might guess…sculptures,

to ice games…

…and a few different ice slides. To maximize our experience we went once in the daytime and got wristbands to come back after dark for a night time part two. We left to shop at Safeway and to be efficient I dropped everyone else back off to play in the snow some more while I got dinner ready. When I came back I decided to give the slides a try.

I liked that this place had a place to borrow sleds. Free! Thanks Elks Club!

We ended up having a dollied up Safeway frozen pizza for dinner with some Alaskan beer.

Thoughts on food…

I’ve found that the fish here, whether in supermarkets or restaurants, are not as cheap as I thought they’d be. Also, Asian restaurant food was way more expensive than I was expecting, but you know, supply and demand. I will say the one thing I’d eat at again was the $35 halibut plate at Chowder house. Also, there was no noticeable mixing of native Alaskan cuisine into menus, whatever that may be. Don’t know cuz I didn’t see it.

New day, new play. Thursday

Brekkie is a giant leftover cinnamon bun from Cookie Jar, coffee and milk.

Dog mushing

When June booked this activity for us, I thought we’d be going to a commercial space for dog mushing tours. I was a bit confused at first when I met our tour guides-Jameson and Kristin whom house 40 or so Alaskan huskies at their home located maybe a 15-20 minutes drive from town. Later I realized that Fairbanks probably has its fair share of people with hobby and competition dogs, cherished for their hardworking mentality and recognized as a reliable form of transportation in the wintry months.

I ended up learning a good deal about everyday living in Alaska simply by walking into our hosts’ home for a few minutes and taking story about heat, water and transportation.

The center for any snow home is the wood burning stove. Mostly to heat, you can also cook and heat water on one of these. Note the heat convection powered fan used to circulate warm air around the house. Howsit work? This is the Cadillac of stoves btw. Jameson said the rule of thumb is to have a pile of wood roughly the size of your house to be properly prepared for winter

The Alaskan husky is actually a mutt, a non akc category of functional working dog that weighs around 35 plus pounds and most importantly has a double coat of fur. Their fur is so warm that their ideal running temperature is when the thermometer reads -20 degrees Fahrenheit. They run with their tongues hanging out to cool off and these dogs run bare footed to remove heat. Jameson’s dogs in total consume around one large bag of dog food per day.

The dogs run in two parallel lines and are extremely excited to run and get pulling. They were howling in excitement and there was the occasional lead dog to rear dog scolding. These guys live to work. Jameson and Kristin’s dogs are a collection of younger 1-3 year olds as well as a few older dogs. Some of the dogs have run and placed in the Iditarod race, a 1000 mile multi day race across Alaska to honor the early mailmen and couriers.

The lead dogs are chosen as much for their personalities as their physical strength. The (2) lead dogs need to be able to command of the rest of the line and are the ones responding to the mushers direction commands. Everyone behind follows, and a dog that cannot keep up will slow the entire group down.

Here are a few types of sleds-this first one is the one we rode in. It has a flat bottom to float over loose snow. Some have long runners, and all of them have a place for the mushers to stand and brake at the back. see below:

Usually there are at least two types of brakes.

The dogs were unbelievably excited to pull us. They were yelping and barking at each other in anticipation of running. I remember when our old border collie Spike would make that yell whenever he saw a cat and got out to chase it.

On your marks, get set. GO!

You might have 12-16 dogs pulling a sled. More dogs don’t equate to a higher top speed, they do allow for more power going up hills. Every so often a dog will take a bite of snow for a drink, called “dipping.”

The dogs each have a little house like this. Looks cold but with new straw laid down every day they can stay around 70 degrees.

The boys even got to ride a Ski Doo built for snow. Jameson was so welcoming of us onto his property and home. Very heartwarming.

Hudson enjoying the company of a dog named River

Thanks guys for the hospitality!

Next we went to Pioneer Plaza (aka Walleyworld). It looked closed from the outside and most of the stores and museums inside were indeed closed.

“Sorry folks, we’re closed for renovations” yuk yuk yuk.

One thing that was open (which I awkwardly accidentally stumbled into) was a folk school where kids were whittling branches with knives into, well, wooden knives.

We also succeeded in our first geocache near the aviation museum.

Look out son! Oh wait it’s a metal bird.

If you see a pile of snow you might as well climb it.

Wow, such an artistic eye!

Afterwards we visited REI and geocached again in their backyard. Another success! About time, really.

Oop, aurora notification! 10:45 pm. Mount up, gang.

Into the orange! What does it mean? Here we go, back at Creamer’s Field.

Met a dude from Harbin standing out in the snow. We took each other’s pictures since June was in the car with the sleeping kids as we were taking turns going into the field.

How’s my aura lookin?

Ice fishing

Today we have a 4 hour time slot booked out at Chena lake with Rod’s guide service. While on our previous Arctic Circle tour, our guide mentioned how you can remember the salmon types by looking at your hand. The thumb represents the chum salmon (thumb, chum. Get it?), the pointer finger represents the sockeye salmon, and the middle finger is the king salmon. Ring is the silvery salmon and the pinky is the pink salmon.

Chena lake was about a 30 minute drive out of town. We fished out on the frozen lake using holes drilled through snow and ice with an electric auger. We were able to either fish in a heated shack or out on the open on the ice.

We used short rods, maybe 2 feet long equipped with split shot and shrimp, ika or (seasoned) fluorescent pink shrimp for bait.

There were 8 others of us fishing at the same time. Although Chena lake is stocked yearly with fingerlings, we had limited success. Our guide Clarence thought that the end of the season warmer temperatures set in early this year.

Fishing outside was nicer than indoors. Our guide mentioned that it was probably the best day to fish outside he’s seen this season, which helps when you’re not catching fish. You could fit 16 or so fishermen side by side in the cabin but it’s cramped. I can imagine when it’s freezing outside that stove is real nice. It was probably 40 degrees or so today.

We had hot chocolate and caribou (not reindeer) hot dogs halfway through.

We chatted with the other parties, one of which was a group we took pictures of/for at Chena a few days earlier.

At the end our guide cooked up the few fish we caught in tinfoil with butter and lemon pepper. June, Pax and one other guy were the only ones that caught any fish, all from inside the cabin.

One guy even dropped his sunglasses down a fishing hole. We could see the glasses sitting on the bottom with the fish finder but couldn’t quite hook it with a trebel hook. I think Clarence took it as kind of a challenge to try to retrieve the glasses.

After getting back into town the boys decided they had enough sledding. We ended up playing snow fight in the back of the hotel. Feelings were hurt. Not mine.

We cooked up the rest of our salmon and corn and tried to empty out the fridge as the end of our trip is coming up. We made sandwiches for tomorrow’s tour to Denali.

Last full day, Denali

To fulfill Paxton’s desire to visit another national park, we decided on a visit to Denali National Park. We weren’t sure what to expect since it’s the tail end of winter. A large majority of the park is closed of due to winter weather but we should be able to go part way into the park.

Once again, Northern Alaska Adventures. We’re heading up into Denali National Park for one last day trip. The park is around 150 miles from Fairbanks and consists of one main road going into (and out of) the park, as opposed to Yellowstone which is more or less a loop and series of roads and has entrances on several sides.

On the drive up we stopped at what was for some reason a really interesting tiny store in a tiny town that felt like it had two main streets that crisscrossed in the middle. We stopped here to pick up sandwiches and snacks. Not knowing any better, I’d say this general store is the heart of town.

Somehow in this day of Walmart superstores and shopping on Amazon with prime delivery, having a small grocery providing necessities is a wonderful throwback to how things used to be, Perhaps how they could or should be. Life condensed into a single storefront. After all, do you need k-cups or 60″ flat screen tvs or more practical necessities like canned goods or motor oil or a satchel of gummy snacks? Their souvenir section had more character in it than I found at Walmart or Fred Meyers. There was beaver pelt, locally made earrings and gloves, crafts and handmade weed themed (why?) bic lighter holsters that keep your lighter safe. You’ve got a plumbing section and a junk food section. While standing in line to buy drinks, the lady (tourist) in front of me asks the cashier about the town school and how big it is. The cashier says, “It’s a K through 12 school. There’s about 250 kids there, and about 120 of them are native Indian.” I chime in and ask-“How many are in any given grade level?” The cashier looks at me and then glances at the person/kid in line behind me behind me and says “Hey so and so, how many kids are in your class?” The girl, probably 14 or 15, says that she’s got-oh, 15 kids in her class. That’s how tight this place is. Tight enough where the person standing behind you can answer your random touristy question first person and in person.

At that moment I knew I needed to take something from this place. Not ear muffs or handmade gloves made from the skin of a local animal but something I could use regularly back home. I just knew this was going to be the T-shirt of the trip, I just had to find an okay color in my size. I won’t be picky, but at the same time I realistically probably wouldn’t wear purple. I settled on baby blue. The kids got sodas which they tried to chill outside in the snow surrounding the store. Like I mentioned, this place has a soul unlike most box stores.

To add to the small town flavor, this guy wanders up and puts his hand out and says to June “Do you know who I am?” (Um, no, should I?) “Well I won the Iditarod (sled dog race) in 1976. I like to come and talk to the tourists.” Then he went about and said how he fell in love in (or with, still not sure) San Diego (couldn’t tell if he was referring to the place or a woman) and that his plans for the day are to have a hot chocolate before (ugh) heading into Fairbanks for some random business.

Gerald “Gerry” Riley won the Iditarod in ’79. Resident of Nenana. His major past time-taking to tourists and letting em know who he is.

Nenana, as small as it is, is also the home of the Nenana Classic. What is this, you might ask? It’s an event where the residents and anyone else interested bet on the melting of the ice on the river, or what’s known as “the breakup.”

Every year Nenana hosts a competition where people guess when the Tanana river will begin to melt each spring. The first competition was held in 1917 by a couple of bored engineers and its legacy lives on.

There’s a line tied from the tower on the ice up to the clock tower and when the ice melts and the line moves, the clock stops and a winner is decided. A ticket/guess costs $2.50.

Here’s the sensor in the water.

Stay interesting, Nenana. I forgot, we’re here for a tour to Denali.

Denali national park

You can ride back by car or take a train.

The main activity we did was go on a one-mile hike using borrowed snowshoes. Although noisy, they really cut down the snow-poleing.

Our guide Mike said he’d probably drink the water out of here. No beavers upstream.

Unfortunately on the way out we missed the kennels. Denali is the only national park that actively uses snow dogs and sleds to get around the park. Running dogs in the wintertime is actually easier to get around than during the summer because with the snowfall the dogs can go over water, light brush and tundra.

The bus from “Into The Wild” was originally along the drive in. It has since been moved from it’s old location to the University for restoration because too many people were getting hurt or killed going out to visit it

After Denali we went back to the university sledding hill for a couple of last runs down the hill. Pictured is my trusty piece of sitting foam that was there for me each visit.. Too junk for anyone to take yet good enough to not be thrown away.

… and we planned out our river betting strategy while waiting…

…as well as a geocache. This time a success.

And then dinner at the Pump House, a renovated historic building that was important in the gold mining days for its utilitarian purposes. Nowadays it’s known for its food. This may have been the most happening eatery in Fairbanks we had the privilege of visiting. One of the bar area pool tables is supposedly a Brunswick from 1917.

While at dinner we each placed our bets on when the Tanana river would melt. No kids at the bar please!

*As of 4/29 no winner yet. You can see the progress on the #nenanaiceclassicfanpage on Facebook

I had the halibut (Chowder House was better imho), June the seafood risotto, Paxton the seafood chowder in a bread bowl, and the chicken strips for Hudson per our waitress’ suggestion. Dinner overall was great and we talked in the car afterwards about tipping and percentages.

Even though our aurora app wasn’t looking promising, we went to have a look, this time at Peat Ponds, a bird lookout near the base of Murray Dome road.

Success! What a way to end our trip.

…and this ends our trip. Last thoughts?

Fairbanks, why are you so boring? We can’t be the only tourists here.

One of our tour guides called it “ping-ponging” when you lose control while driving and bounce around the snow-covered street a few times. Another interesting car related thing is that the car rental agency offers windshield insurance. Lots of cracked windshields out here.

This state really feels like one of the last frontiers. Its population is low and resources plentiful. Traffic is non existent and the people are strong and resilient. That’s because they have to be. Alaska, you have been eye opening and a sight to behold!