We finally arrive in Fairbanks and are met by our tour guide, Elise. We are a day early for our land tour but we will adapt and get to spend two days here instead of one. Our tour bus is named “Donna.” the driver, John, dropped us and luggage at the hotel, gave us 15 minutes to drop off our carry-on bags and took us downtown to the restaurant so we could have dinner. Above are pictures of the park where our driver drops us and picks us up in downtown.
The bell hops took our luggage up to our rooms while we had dinner. Super nice rooms at Sophie's Station. We could stay here for a week. More like a condo than a motel room.
It is after 5 pm by the time we finally sit down to dinner at a great BBQ place. Donna, the bus, is there at 6:30 to bring us back to the hotel. We are tired. Tomorrow we go gold panning.
We get a special treat and go see the Alaska Pipeline, there is even a guy there to tell us how it works, how it is kept warm and clean. Very interesting. Now we are on the way to see a gold dredge and do some panning of our own.!
We take a little train through the gold dredge fields. The conductor even sings before we leave. As we go through the tailings he explains how the gold was mined from the first miners through the big dredge. I cannot imagine the kind of life they lived, and that was when gold was selling for $16 an ounce. They could only mine during the spring, summer seasons. We are given a demonstration on how to pan for gold then let off the train at the gold panning station. We are given a “tote” of dirt and have at it. At least the water was warmed in the troughs where we sat and panned.
After we get our gold, we go to the “gift shop” and they weigh and price out the gold, then we can buy a pendant or something to put our gold in. Of course we can look around and buy other things too! It is a big building and as we leave the staff comes out and waves good'-by.
After lunch on our own, we are taken to the University of Fairbanks Museum. It is very well done and a beautiful building.
Just a couple of the displays at the museum. Lots more, but we opt to watch the movies about the history and a beautiful film on the Northern Lights. What cause them and when they are visible.
We bought tickets to a buffet dinner and show. Our hotel had a shuttle that took us to the Pioneer Village. The dinner was fire roasted salmon or crab, or fried cod or prime rib, with sides. A big bus load of people came in just before us. Kept us in line so long our potatoes got cold, but the salmon and crab legs were delicious! Well worth the time it took to get the meat out of the crabs. After dinner we walked over to the little theater for the show. It was a mix of vaudeville and melodrama, based on the history of Fairbanks. Very well done and lots of fun. We left around 10 pm and it was still full daylight. The weather was clearing so we didn’t get wet!
The sunset is beautiful. As we head back to the hotel, we ask to be notified if the Northern lights appear tonight.
The northern lights do appear—at 2:30 am. We went out of our warm room into the cold night and saw them. Not a lot of colors, sort of white with green tint. Mostly looked like a jet trail, but then we did see some sheeting. Very nice.
The next morning we are up at 5:30 am to get our bags out and get bussed over to the paddle wheel boat ride on the Chena river, with a stop at a replica of an Atabascan Indian Village. First we say the reindeer. The guide asked if we knew the difference between reindeer and caribou, one guy said reindeer fly, too funny, but wrong answer. Reindeer are domesticated, and Caribou are wild.
The paddle wheel boat took us up the Cheena River. The guides at the village were high school and college age girls. They have been raised in villages during their childhood. They were very interesting and answered many questions.
That afternoon we were bussed to Denali. It took about two hours to get there. We are tired, but after lunch we ride a bus to the home of Jeff King. He raises the Husky dogs that run the sled races in Alaska and Canada. His youngest daughter was our bus driver. When we got there we were encouraged to hold the puppies. AWE, they are so cute.
I got puppy kisses. These dogs love to run, and they love to pull the sleds. During the summer they pull an ATV with the motor off and in gear for training purposes. They also have wheels like hamsters, only bigger, where they can run. It is so fun to watch. We were also told about the breeding, the training and a lot more about the dogs and the races.
We are back at the lodge by 10 pm and it is still full daylight. We are so tired, but tomorrow we go into the Denali National Park, starting at 5 am.
Wow, some vacation, I don’t get up this early ever! But it is worth it. We have a beautiful, clear day. And we are going to get to see Denali Mountain, aka Mt. McKinley.
Up and into a bus after breakfast. I’m am so sleepy, but there is so much to see. We have great weather. It is cold, so cold there is a light dusting of snow on the mountains and frost on the grass in front of the lodge. Our first stop on the bus tour is a cabin used by the rangers that patrol the Denali National Park. The ranger tells us about the hardships and stories of the first rangers in the park. It is so cold standing outside, I can’t stay still. There were special houses for the dogs, but now they use snowmobiles and ATV’s so the dog houses are not kept up. There are lots of wild animals in the forest, and to keep the bears out of the cabin they put nails pointing outward. That would deter any bear!
Back on the bus and on to milepost 17, where we find outhouses with grass growing on the roof, a native who sings us a song, we spy Moose and Caribou with our binoculars and get our first clear view of Mt. McKinley. The Denali Mountain.
After a quick stop at the visitors center—a multimillion dollar display of the wildlife of the park, we head to the station to catch the Wilderness Train.
Below is our guide, Elise in front of the train car. Some of the scenes we see from the train.
We enjoy a nice lunch aboard the train and arrive in Talkeetna in the early evening. We stay at the Talkeetna Lodge. Both of us are too tired to eat again, so we nap and then grab a bowl of soup at the Bistro inside the lodge. Again we have a beautiful clear day, and our room faces “the mountain.’ What a beautiful view. Elise tells us that only about 30% of the people on tour get to see the mountain as it is usually shrouded in fog, rain or just clouds.
Our first tour is a jet boat ride on the river and it doesn’t start until 11:30 am. Yeah! We get to sleep in. Oh boy, we are awake at 8 am. So much for sleeping in. We decide to take the hotel shuttle into town for breakfast. It is a quaint little town and the starting point for those hardy souls that want to climb the mountain. They can only get permits from May until July, because of weather conditions on the mountain.
The shuttle takes off ever 1/2 hour. So we catch the 9:30 one and figure we have plenty of time for breakfast at the Roadhouse Café, that Elise has suggested. Family style dining and home cooking.
In town we find a “pretty” moose and Penguins have the right away!
Breakfast is delicious, lots of people here for breakfast, but within a few minutes we find a seat and get to meet some people from different parts of the states. One lady is a helicopter pilot for the air force. The pancakes are so big they over hang the plates. I have a homemade cinnamon roll with raspberries in it. Yum!
Back to catch the shuttle and on to our next tour which is a jet boat ride up the river through the wilderness. It is a covered boat! It is still cold, even with the sun shining. You know, cold to me is 50 or 60 degrees. So I’m still in sweatshirts, with turtleneck shirts under them!
The view of the mountains from the water is spectacular! We also see some eagles. See if you can spot them. They don’t have their white heads yet as they are too young.
There is an eagles nest in the third picture. The river is wide but very shallow and filled with sand bars. But what a view, water, sand bar, forest and the highest mountain in the USA as a back drop.
At the end of the trip up the river we get to go on a “nature hike,” with a native guide. She carries a bear rifle to keep us safe! We learn more about how the natives live here in Talkeetna. Their shelters, food and clothing.
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Summer shelter, hole in ground to keep things cold, our guide with rifle to keep us safe from bears, the storage house to keep animals from getting in. The inside of the winter house.
Back to the Lodge and our final train ride as a group. We again board the Wilderness train to Anchorage.
We are just part of the “Millennium Survivors!” Our bus group leaving the lodge.
Somewhere in that fuzzy picture is a bear. Our only sighting.
On the train heading to Anchorage. We met nice people, saw great sights and stayed in nice lodging. A great land tour.
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