Travels West: Fairbanks

From Tok, the Alaska Highway runs along the Tanana River, where it officially ends at Delta Junction, Mile Post 1,422 / 2,288.5 km from Dawson Creek with the appropriate monument. At the Visitor's Centre there are some interesting sculptures - the mosquitoes are vicious in this part of the country and they don't buzz like the one's in Ontario.

Delta Junction, the end of the Alaska Highway

Mosquitoes !!!!

The road to Fairbanks is known as the Richardson Highway. There was no signal for our Sirius satellite radio, on several occasions, as was the case driving up the Dempster likely because of the mountains and angle of the satellite in the sky. Most of the way we travelled through boreal forests and black spruce bogs with some peaks of the Alaska Range on the west. There was evidence of forest fires and plow winds in several spots along the road. We did come across some wildlife, a young caribou bull came out of the bush where we had stopped in a pullout (left in too much of a hurry for us to take a photo), and we also had two moose sightings.

Just before Fairbanks you come to an interesting store called The Knotty Shop - the front grass of the store was full of "creatures" made from "knotty" trees.

Knotty critters

Knotty Shop

Then you come to North Pole, Alaska, and yes the town has a larger than life statue of Santa Claus, cut outs of Santa, his sleigh and reindeer, real reindeer and a gift shop that looks like Christmas all year round. Cute.

Fairbanks sits on the Chena River, which runs into the Tanana River and hence on to the Yukon River. They were experiencing a bit of a heat wave for two of the three days we were there with temperatures reaching 35 degrees C, an all time record. We stayed at an RV park on the banks of the Chena river, and it was interesting watching some of the watercraft that went by that ranged from kayaks to a (noisy) sea-doo type machines that you stand on.

Fairbanks is an interesting place to see, and we were very impressed with the history, geography, cultural, and natural history displays at the Marie Thompson Cultural and Visitors Centre and the Antler Arch (made with over 100 moose and caribou antlers, which they shed each winter).

Marie Thompson Cultural & Visitors Centre

Antler Arch

The University of Alaska has a large presence on a hillside overlooking the city centre, and there they have a spectacular Museum of the North (history of Athabaskan art and culture, natural history, including an 8 foot 9 inch high grizzly bear which is the nearest I have got to the real thing, and the industries of Fairbanks).

There was also a Large Animal Research Station where you can have a guided tour with interesting information on muskoxen, reindeer and caribou.

Female muskox

Caribou on the left, reindeer on the right

Fairbanks Pioneer Park has many buildings transplanted there from their original sites in town during the gold rush, a small reproduction of a steam engine that takes you on a tour around the park, and yet another stern wheeler resting on dry land.

Just outside of Fairbanks, there is a viewing area and information on the Alaska oil pipeline that moves oil from Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean to Valdez, Alaska for shipping south (remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill). In order to avoid melting the permafrost, the pipeline is above ground with special support structures. There was also information on the "pigs" - devices that are sent down the pipeline to keep the surfaces clean.

Because of the heat wave, and extreme dryness in this part of Alaska, there were forest fires burning in the area from lightning strikes, which were very obvious from the smoky atmosphere and smell that we woke up to the morning we were leaving Fairbanks for Denali. The radio was saying that the road was closed (only road between Fairbanks and Anchorage), but at the Visitor Centre, they said they were letting vehicles through the forest fire area with pilot cars. So that was how we were able to drive to Denali, and indeed the forest fire was smouldering alongside the road in spots.

Scorched trees

Denali (meaning the High One in the native Athabaskan tongue) or Mount McKinley is the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet or 6,194m. Denali National Park and Preserve covers six million acres. There is only one access road into the park, and only Park shuttle buses and tour buses (school buses with seatbelts) are allowed on the road, which is gravel, windy and narrow, with steep drops in some spots. We took the bus to the Eielson Visitor Centre at 7:30 in the morning, which took about 3.5 hours to drive 33 miles. The weather started out with low clouds, and threatening rain, but held off and cheered up a bit, but not enough for us to see Mt. McKinley. As far as wildlife goes, we saw a fox, and some ground squirrels up close, but the moose, Dall sheep and caribou were far off - zoom lenses on the camera were needed to get a good look at those animals. The scenery of the river valleys and mountains is spectacular in that area despite the weather. Appropriately we stayed at the Grizzly Bear RV Park near Denali. I had to take a photo of one of our neighbours Coach/RV as I had never seen anything like it before. It was being used by a group of tourists from Germany.