Fun in Fairbanks

We left Tok heading to Fairbanks and saw the mountains called the Alaska Range along the way. 

One of many we have seen on our trip, this was the Robertson River and the color of the water is what they call 'white' because of the volcanic ash it carries.  The rivers are wide and although this time of year the water is low, during heavy rains and snow melt the water really flows.

We stopped at this shop outside Delta Junction and bought different types of sausage made with elk and reindeer meat.  Yummy! 

The Delta Junction Visitor's Center is the official end of the Alaska Highway.  Fairbanks also claims to be the end of the Alaska Highway but the road between Delta Junction and Fairbanks, the Richardson Highway, had already been built before 1942.

A view of the 1,200 foot long section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System suspended across the Tanana River.

Moving the rig over so this big load could get past on a two-lane road.

 

Some spectacular views of the 'braided' Tanana River and the milky colored water.  It is called braided because it is continually shifting and changing.  Navigating the river is dangerous and takes years of experience to read and understand the water flow, watch for shallow spots, and avoid sand bars which continually move.  The water from this river flows into the Chena River which is the main body of water through Fairbanks. 

A plane flying over Eielson Air Force Base outside of Fairbanks. 

One section of it was the Alaska Air National Guard.

We arrived at our RV park in Fairbanks and set up.  The park is nice but crowded.  Every couple days we see a different caravan group of travelers coming and going, usually 20 to 25 rigs in each group. The group that is here now came in from driving the Taylor Highway to Dawson City, Alaska, over the Top of the World Highway.  The first 60 miles are paved but the majority of the road is gravel.  We saw two big rigs with broken windshields they had taped to try and stop the cracks and another tow car that had a headlight smashed.  We talked to one of the rig owners with major cracks in his windshield and he said they still had 5,000 miles more to go. He hoped the windshield would hold up because there is no way to get a new one shipped and replaced in short order.  For that reason, we had decided to not go up to Dawson City. 

Ouch !!!

Our replacement for our burned up HWH leveling system arrived and we called the repair shop that said they would come and replace the unit.  It took multiple phone calls and being ignored the whole week but we finally got a call on Sat. and the gentleman came over on Sunday afternoon and put in the new hydraulic control box. 

We drove over to the North Pole to see Santa and his crew.  They were very busy!

Actually, it was a really neat store.

This Russian carving is a one of a kind and sells for $15,000.  It was a bit too pricey for our taste but I did find another Santa to add to my Christmas collection.

This is called "Dancing Through the Snow in a Studebaker Brothers Sleigh" circa 1860.

Other businesses around the town got in on the act.

We made another stop at a place called the Knotty Shop because they had some unique carvings outside.

These are all made out of tree burls.

This one was titled "Alasquito".  Aptly named!

We drove to downtown Fairbanks on July 4th to see the sights.  One of the things we found was that there were not many holiday festivities other than a few small parades and events at local children's parks. We asked about fireworks and were told that they don't have any because there is no dark this time of year.  That is a true statement!  It is light 24/7 !!!!! 

We found out the long days increase until June 21st and then after that each day loses 7 minutes of light until late December.  And then it starts all over again.  

This artwork is called, "Baby Ravens in Nails".

This arch is made up of more than 100 moose and caribou antlers collected from all over Alaska.

Red, white, and blue floral displays abounded to celebrate the holiday.

Fairbanks is the largest city in the interior Alaska with a population of 32,751, and is the home of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Golden Heart Plaza is in the center of downtown on the Chena River.

In 1967, Fairbanks experienced the greatest flood in its history when the Chena River overflowed into the city.  August was not a typical month and rainfall started on August 8th and continued until August 15th dropping 6.15 inches of rain compared to normal annual rainfall of 10.8 inches.  Residents began moving their belongings to  upper floors and the waters kept rising.  Over 12,000 people had to be evacuated with seven deaths.

About 95% of Fairbanks flooded and the city knew they had to do more to protect the people.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acquired land and built the Moose Creek Dam 17 miles outside of Fairbanks.  They built a 20.7 mile levee and an 8.1 mile dam.  The depressions formed by gravel removal for use in the dam construction became the center of activity for creating 20,000 acres of public land used by the residents today for all types of sports. 

The flood waters from the Chena River were several feet higher than where I am standing in this picture.  Note the white sign on my right which marks the actual water height.

They don't mess around in Fairbanks.

Alongside our park was a nice restaurant called the Chena Alaska Grill right on the Chena River.  We went there one night for dinner.

Is he a cutie, or what........

The Captain had Amber Glazed Fresh Wild Caught Alaskan Halibut.

I had Cranberry BBQ Glazed Fresh Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon.  The meal was delicious!

People were having a great time on the Chena River as they floated past the restaurant.

In 1968, oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay. A consortium of oil companies determined that a pipeline offered the best means to transport the crude oil to a navigable port where it could be shipped by tankers to the continental U.S.   Alyeska Pipeline Service Company was established in 1970 to design, construct, operate and maintain the pipeline.  It began moving oil in 1977.

The pipeline is 800 miles long with the pipe being 48 inches in diameter.  It crosses three mountain ranges and 500 rivers and streams and carries the oil from Prudhoe to Valdez.

  

The tall pole in front in this picture is a heat pipe that transfers ground heat into the air when the air temperature is cooler than the ground.  This is to ensure that unstable soils remain frozen year round to support the pipeline.  There are more than 124,000 heat pipes along the pipeline.

This tool was called a pig and it scraped wax from the internal walls of the pipe when the pipeline first began. Once the system warmed up from the constant flow of North Slope oil the wax build up ended.  At that time the scraper pig was replaced by a lighter and softer polyurethane pig.  

The polyurethane pig smooths the flow of oil by reducing turbulence making it easier to pump.  This scraper pig weighs more than 2,600 lbs.  There is another tool called a smart pig that travels along the inside of the pipeline testing for weaknesses and potential problems within the pipeline.

The pipeline was designed for all types of soil conditions. In places of thaw-unstable soils, where heat from the oil in the pipeline might cause instability, the pipeline was insulated and elevated above ground. In other areas, the pipeline was insulated and buried to accommodate animal crossings or to avoid rock slide/avalanche-prone areas. In other sections, the pipeline was buried in a refrigerated ditch to keep the soil in a stable frozen condition.  There are 44 buried road crossings along the 800 mile long pipeline for vehicle crossings. 

The Captain has twice loaded pictures from his camera and forgotten to put the memory chip back in so we couldn't take new pictures.  This day I asked him if he had the memory chip in and he said let me take a picture to see.  My quick response.....

The pups wading in the Chena River on their morning walk.

We decided to take a boat ride on the Chena River.

It was a four-deck paddle boat. 

There were many lovely homes built along the river.

We noticed many of the roofs were made of metal and had strips on the roof in certain sections.  This is to keep the snow on the roof which helps with insulation.  When the snow gets too high it will fall off over the metal stripping.  The homes are also being built with in-floor heating that radiates up throughout the entire home.  With temperatures to -40 in the winter I can see why.

While on the paddle boat we saw a float plane take off and land on the river.  There are 750k people living in Alaska and one in sixty has a pilot's license.  This is a popular means of transportation.

An old barge that used to carry goods on the river.

Now that's a dock. 

The owner has this sign posted in front of his home.

The boat stopped so we could view a dogsled camp.  This is Susan Butcher's dog camp and she won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race four times.

Puppies being trained to become sled dogs.

We saw a dog sled dog demonstration.  The ATV had no motor in it and the dogs could pull it up to 20 miles per hour.

In the distance you can see the dogs working in tandem to pull the driver.

Afterward all the dogs got to cool off in the water.

We were able to disembark and visit a Chena Athabascan Indian Village fish camp that was a replica of an original 1900's camp located near this site.

This water wheel was used to trap and catch salmon.

The salmon was cleaned and sliced and then hung up to dry before being put in a smoker shed.

There were domestic caribou you could see closely.

They were hoping for handouts so they came up close to the fencing.

An original birch canoe with snow shoes in front.

A mobile sleeping tent made of animal hides.

Beautiful animal hides.

And a parka made from hides.  This took 6 months to make by hand. The young lady wearing the coat is a member of the Athabasca tribe and a current student at Brigham Young University.

Two moose who were fighting over a mate and died after their antlers became intertwined. 

This restaurant on the Chena River is called The Pump House.  It was a sunny day with temperatures in the upper 70's.

On our last day in Fairbanks we took a tour of Gold Dredge 8 in the Goldstream Valley.  The dredge operated from 1928 to 1959.  The company that owned and operated the dredge, Fairbanks Exploration, spent a great deal of money and seven years of difficult work to bring this dredge into operation along with several other dredges they owned. 

This was how gold mining was completed before the dredges were brought in. 

It was a very slow, time consuming process. In warmer weather gravel was manually dug from the ground, dropped into a large metal bucket, and carried by a pulley to be dropped onto a pile called a tailing. 

In the cold winter weather the miner would spend his time taking the dirt from the tailing and gold panning with water to find the golden flecks.

Gold dredges combine the four basic functions of mining into a single, mechanized production plant.  Those four functions are digging, sorting, gold-saving, and the disposal of tailings.

Gold Dredge 8 boat was built in 1927 by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and shipped in sections up to the Alaska gold fields.  Water was needed to separate the gold flakes from the gravel and rocks so a 90 mile long conduit was built to supply water to the dredge.

These large buckets pulled dirt from the ground and into the dredging operation.  Each bucket weighed 1,500 lbs and could hold 6 cubic feet of gravel.  As the dredge floated in its pond, the bucket line would dig into the bank scooping up loads of gold-bearing gravel and load it into a hopper.  The bucket line could dig to a depth of 28 feet and had a top speed of 22 buckets per minute, processing over 6,000 feet of cubic material in a 24-hour shift.

All of the dirt was then spilled through a trommel which was a 36 foot long, 6 foot diameter, downward sloping cylinder perforated with a series of small holes of of varying sizes. The trommel slowly spun and blasted the gold-bearing gravel with high pressure water.  The rotating along with all the water sent the heavier pieces of gold through into sluice boxes below, trapping the gold. 

Everyone on the tour was given a bag of gravel and shown how to use the pan to extricate the gold from within   Notice the concentration.  The Captain and I completed our gold panning and between the two of us we found gold valued at $16.  Although the mine is shut down the land still has a good amount of gold to find.

Our stash!!!!

During the Depression, the federal government decided to take the United States off the gold standard and set the price of gold at $35 an ounce.  This had an effect on the Fairbanks Exploration Co. because there operation had variable costs.  Over time, other laws were passed protecting workers and the environment and making it no longer cost effective for the company to continue. Today, dredging is no longer allowed in Alaska.

We arrived early for the tour of the dredge and started talking with a couple, Pete and Lori from Chicago, who were also going on the tour.  During a conversation about RVing we mentioned we go to Mission, TX, in winter and stay at the Bentsen Palm RV Resort Village.  Pete mentioned he was there last winter and asked us if we knew a guy by the name of Ski and his wife, Jo. 

Pete and Lori, our new friends from Chicago. 

Time to start playing, "It's a Small World After All".  Ski was the person at Bentsen Palms who found a lab pup and brought him to our site because he was unable to keep him.  We named the dog Scottie, and kept him for two months until he was adopted by Terry and Bev Matteningly who were also staying at Bentsen Palms.  Terry and Bev live in British Columbia and we are stopping in to see them (and Scottie) on our way home from this trip.   

On the train ride to Gold Dredge 8.

We had a great time in Fairbanks.  Enjoyed the town, the people, the weather, and the sights.  Time to move on with Denali our next stop and then on to Anchorage.  We checked the weather and it is a bit cooler and wetter as we head further toward the coast.  Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be as nice there as it's been here.....Peace!