Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Canada 2022

Back into Alaska! 

Fairbanks, Alaska

We had an uneventful flight from Dawson City to Fairbanks on a charter flight with a couple of other tour groups doing the “land cruise” organized by Holland America and sister company Princess.

Fairbanks is the 3^rd largest city in Alaska, second to Juneau by about 700 people, and by far the largest in the interior. It’s very walkable, with friendly locals, and a lovely series of parks along the Chena River.

We spent a pleasant afternoon in Fairbanks, Big Daddy’s BBQ had a special on pork ribs – John took advantage and ordered 8 ribs at $1.50 each – they were huge, and John said they were some of the best he had every had. I ate fish & chips – it turns out spicy mustard mixed with barbeque sauce makes for good fish and chips dip. 

The weather was generally pleasant, but windy with occasional drizzles, making it the perfect museum day. One of the interesting museums in town is the Ice Museum ($15/pp), where they show you a video of famous ice carvings, and you walk through a giant freezer (they provide coats) to see ice sculptures up close and personal,

including getting to ride on an ice toboggan. They end the show with an ice carving demonstration. 

Along the riverfront, you will also find the Yukon Quest Museum. The museum is small and free, dedicated to a sled dog race called the Yukon Quest – a total of 1000 miles raced in 4 segments between 100 and 550 miles taking place in Alaska and the Yukon. They encourage you to sponsor a dog in the race by buying a bootie (the dogs wear the booties to protect their paws on certain stretches of the trail) – and you get to write a message on the bootie. I’m supposed to get an email when the musher uses the bootie on the dog. An odd night, since at 11PM, we were going to bed with the sun still up. 

We spent the next morning learning about the Alyeska Pipeline and the gold dredges. 

The pipeline was a feat of engineering, going from Prudhoe Bay in the north down to Valdez in the Prince William Sound (the Sound continues to slowly recover from the Exon Valdez spill in 1989, and will likely be another 20 years before the clamming and other fishing industries make a significant recovery).

The pipeline itself is partly above and partly below ground. It is double layered since the oil is warm and thaws the permafrost, this in turn causes the ground to shift and breaks the pipeline. By insulating the line and providing vents, the heat is contained in the pipeline itself and prevents thawing and shifting – protecting the pipeline and its environs (there have been 18 breaches in the last 18 years, the largest lost 6800 barrels). 

Another industry is the one that brought people to the area at the turn of the 20^th century – gold. When we think of gold mining – we tend to visualize placer mining

– bearded men in streams sloshing dirt in a pan standing in or by a river. I used to think they were scooping up pans of river silt- they actually dig a hole nearby and put the dirt through a “sluice” to separate out the heavier particles (including gold) and then use panning as the last step, separating gold from dirt and fine gravel. For this to be viable, there needs to be a lot of gold close to the surface. Once an area is ”panned out” then industrial dredging takes over. Giant loads dug from the ground are sorted and sifted on an industrial scale.

This remained profitable until the mid 1960’s (historical aside – from 1934 until 1971, the US Government was the only legal buyer of gold at $35/oz), when the cost of mining and disposing of the gravel and other spoil was no longer viable. The machines were abandoned on site as the companies packed up and left.

The site still offers a place for tourists to come and see the techniques, then pan to collect a few flakes (John and I “found” $23 worth, I then spent $30 getting a special bookmark containing the trace amount of gold). 

Next stop – Denali!