Fairbanks
Before starting today’s activities, I forgot to mention yesterday that as we passed through Delta Junction, we reached the “official” end of the Alaska Highway at Milepost 1387. It is marked by a small monument at the highway’s intersection with the Richardson Highway coming up from Valdez. It was from this point that construction of the Alaska Highway was begun by the Army Engineers back in 1942. Westbound construction began at the same time from Dawson Creek, BC, and the two crews finally met at Contact Creek on the BC/Yukon border at or around Mile 568. I’m not sure of the exact point of meeting, but Contact Creek is the traditional meeting point in most literature.
We just hung around Fairbanks today. Fairbanks is a city of approximately 30-35,000 located on the Chena River, a tributary of the Tanana River which we followed in since our rejoining with the Alaska Highway at Tok a couple of days ago. It was established as the center of mining activity back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, and remains the economic hub of the Alaskan interior. It still reflects its blue collar heritage, and has been described as being more about money than culture.
First on today’s agenda was doing laundry at the park laundry room. By then it was lunch time, so we heated up yesterday’s leftover pizza and ate in the RV. While waiting for the laundry I called my friend Fred, who lives in Fairbanks to get some tips on things one must absolutely not miss while here. It was with Fred that I made my previous trip to Alaska back in 1996, when we took the ferry up to Haines and then drove into Fairbanks, but that’s another story. We originally hoped to visit with Fred and his wife, Marty, while we were here, but as fate would have it, he was in Denver to have surgery on his back while we were in Fairbanks, and he’ll be back here when we get home. Anyway, Fred’s number one recommendation was the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. He also recommended Pioneer Park, a river tour on the riverboat Discovery, and perhaps a drive up to the Chena Hot Springs. His description of the riverboat tour sounded too touristy, and it is 50 or 60 miles to the hot springs, so we decided to focus on the Museum of the North and Pioneer Park. Plus, I wanted to get the truck’s oil changed and routine service done after the long drive up, so we needed to set aside an hour or so sometime today or tomorrow for that.
Since Pioneer Park is on our way out of town tomorrow, we’ll hit that in the morning. So this afternoon it was off to the Museum of the North. The University of Alaska Fairbanks campus is a collection of modern buildings situated on a low hill on the northwest side of the City of Fairbanks, just three or four miles down College Road from our RV park. The museum is located in a very modern building that won numerous architectural design awards after its completion in 2002. It is both a natural history and cultural history museum, and also contains galleries exhibiting permanent and rotating collections of both historical and contemporary artwork. In addition, there is a small auditorium which shows short films about the museum itself, the science of the Aurora Borealis, and the Alaskan winter. The film about the museum is titled You Are Here, and it is an outstanding film, not only for the content but in the highly thoughtful, imaginative way it is presented. The other two films were also well done and informative, but You Are Here is a “don’t miss” feature if you ever visit the museum. The major portion of the first floor of the museum is dedicated to the cultural heritage of the peoples of Alaska, both historical and contemporary. It is divided into geographic areas of the state, and each area contains well-designed and executed exhibits of the geology, mineralogy, wildlife, and peoples of the region.
The upper floor contains the art gallery and its collections of historical and modern art of various media types. Much, in fact most, of the art of the native peoples is practical in nature, such as ivory carvings, beadwork on clothing and the like. It’s sometimes hard to believe how the ancient people were able to create such masterpieces, given the limited materials and tools they had at their disposal.
The south-facing atrium of the museum is a two-story high glass wall that overlooks the city of Fairbanks and the Alaska Range on the horizon. On a clear day you can see Mt McKinley from here, but unfortunately today was not such a clear day. We could, however, see the smoke rising from the wildfires several miles to the south which created the hazy conditions we drove through.
Leaving the museum, we stopped at Jiffy Lube for the oil change and Safeway to pick up a couple of small steaks to grille for dinner. We also took a short drive through the city center to see downtown Fairbanks, which probably hasn’t changed much in the past 30 or 40 years. The road back to our RV park passes a wildlife sanctuary which we had read is home to a number of sandhill cranes. We didn’t see them yesterday on our way in, but there were several there today so we stopped and got out our binoculars to take a peek. I attempted to get some photos, but they were several hundred yards away in a large field – too far for me to get decent pictures with my 300mm lens.
Back at the campsite I grilled the steaks while Jeanette baked a large potato in the microwave. Throw in some nice Merlot and a little soft music and we had a lovely ending to a pleasant day.
Tomorrow it’s off to Denali.
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