Fairbanks AK

What can you say about Fairbanks?  Seems like a town in decline but it might just be saved by tourism.  Many of the cruise lines run land tours here and whereever this happens it tends to create a manufactured reality in tours.  Perhaps the biggest tour in Fairbanks is the Riverboat Discovery which promises to take you "deep into the Alaskan interior".  How far can a river boat get in a hour and a half.  Add in to that the obligatory "Salmon Bake" lunch, a demonstration of a bush pilot landing on the river next to the boat and a dog sled team running up and down the riverbank.  Step off only to visit an "authentic" native village and learn some of their culture.  Screams tourist trap to me but I took a picture as it paddled by.

I took a drive into the hills to get an overview then tracked down some musk ox at the University farm.  Tried to visit the gold dredge but those damn cruise line buses were there and the tour was full.  Stopped at the pipeline information "turnout".  Not much there but they had a display of old and new "pigs".  Pigs are what they put down the pipeline regularly to keep it clear of wax build up.  There are old and new pigs and dumb and smart pigs.  This is a new (but not so smart) pig as it would sit in the pipeline.

One thing I noticed as I travelled around was almost all the cars have a cable hanging out the front.




 This is used to power a heater in the engine bay and keep the battery living and stop the oil freezing in winter.  Here is a pic of the cabling outside the hotel in Deadhorse.

Last stop for the day was the Fairbanks Pioneer Village.  Was a bit wary of this as they have an all you can eat Salmon bake and ribs offering too and some actual and recreated old buildings which house various shops.  With time to kill I ventured in.  Pretty good really.  They had a nice gold mining museum and a sensational old paddle steamer (the last one to visit Fairbanks apparently) which they are restoring.  The workings of the engines on that thing are amazing.

Finally as the sun was setting (well not really....doesn't happen till well after 11pm) I went for dinner at one of the nicer local restaurants.  I think I can say this was the best salmon I have ever had in my life.  Locally caught wild salmon from the Copper River just down the road with garlic mash and some lemony saucy thing.  A glass of the local Alaskan Amber and a riverside view capped it off.

I deserve some quality as things are going downhill from here as I hit about 1000k of dirt and 300k of asphalt over 24 hours of driving .


The whole point of this trip coming up next!!!!!