We have been off the grid for a week or so but we will try and quickly catch up. Our Fairbanks, AK visit was busy. We were there for 4 days starting with a visit to the Alaska Salmon Bake at the Pioneer Park, the evening of arrival. There were huge grills filled with Alaskan salmon, halibut, and prime rib, as well as beer battered cod and all the fixings you can imagine. Also had a dessert of wild blueberry or strawberry rhubarb shortcake. Unbelievably good ! Afterward we went to the Palace Theatre Show which we thoroughly enjoyed. The next day started very early on the bus to a Riverboat Cruise. The cruise began with a plane taking off right next to the boat and he circled around and landed on the water for us. Next, we stopped on the river in front of the kennel where acclaimed athlete Susan Butcher, 4 time winner of the 1,100 mile Iditarod race trained her sled dogs. Susan unfortunately died at the age of 51 from leukemia, but left a legacy with this kennel. The trainer did a demonstration with the dogs as a team pulled her on an ATV. She answered all questions via a microphone and explained the care and training of these dogs. We also stopped and had a personalized tour of a Chena Athabaskan village with Alaskan native guides. We visited all the buildings in the village and they explained processes used for skinning hides and showed us all of the hand-made fur pieces. One of the hand-made fur coats was beautiful and today is worth about $10,000 – $15,000.
We then had lunch and boarded the bus for Dredge #8. We learned all about the history of this dredge and the how much gold was mined there. We also panned for gold which takes quite a bit of work but we managed to find some. Cary panned $24 worth and I got $11. We didn’t strike it rich but it was fun doing it. We also got lots of information and saw a large part of the Pipeline.
Another day brought us to the University of Alaska Museum and the Ice Museum in town. Every March there are people from all over the world who come to enter into the ice sculpture competitions. This particular museum won many awards for their entries and several of our group rode down the ice slide. Fun !
The next day was on our own so we decided to drive to North Pole, Alaska and visit Santa Claus’ house where we met Santa and Mrs. Claus, and we definitely put in a good word for all our grandchildren. Lots of fun on this part of the trip.
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