Alaska 2009 - Fairbanks

Terry and I have just spent two wonderful weeks touring parts of Alaska and cruising the inside passage on the way home.  It was so cool and so beautiful! I hope to just show you mostly with pictures with some word of explanation.We left the house around 3:30 a.m. on June 7, to meet the rest of the group at the old Walmart parking lot.  The bus was there to take us to the airport.  Every flight was on time and it was a flawless day flying into Fairbanks, Alaska around 3 p.m. their time (about 4 hours behind central time).  It was sunny and almost hot when we arrived.

 Here is Terry outside the lodge we stayed in.  I think our room is right behind Terry's head. 

                                                   

 The grounds of the lodge had a little area to walk in with some historical information and some picures of early settlers. Here is a picture of an example of a homestead cabin and it is about as tiny as it looks.

The next morning we headed out on a bus to tour a spot on the Alyeska Pipeline and then the Eldurango Gold Mine.  After we saw some demontrations of different methods of gold mining we panned a little gold ourselves.  I'm afraid we would have been among the starving if we had been gold miners, but it was fun to try. 

              

In the afternoon we took a sternwheeler cruise on the Chena River.  That was a fun way to see some of the Fairbanks area and get in on some short historical and cultural tours. 

We had some demonstrations of Eskimo and Athabaskan skills and lifestyles. This is an Athabaskan style parka with beadwork forget-me-nots.

Some young ladies are also raising and training sled dogs in the style of Susan Butcher in the area where Susan and her husband raised their daughters and worked with their dogs. There was a little demonstration on their summer training and exercise. I hope you can see how excited these dogs were to pull the four wheeler around the lake. Leaping with joy about describes it.  After that they jumped in the river to cool off.