A couple of souvenirs from Kennecott: On the right is one of the RR spikes that bedevil motorists on the McCarthy Road. You can buy one for $1 at the little museum in McCarthy, but I pried this one out of the road itself.
On the left is a piece of copper ore we found on our hike back to one of the outlying mines.
We stopped off for a couple of nights at Pippin Lake - basically a small community located at the junction of two highways about 5 hours south of Fairbanks. Our little cabin/B&B was really very nice - located right on the lake, and the owners had a variety of watercraft with which to enjoy a day on the water. We tried out the canoe for about 20 minutes, but it was a little too tippy for our comfort level so we switched over to a two person paddleboat in which we circled the lake on a crisp, sunny morning. Made for a very relaxing day.
Lots of pretty views of the Wrangell mountains before it clouded up later in the afternoon.
The highway between Valdez and Fairbanks parallels the trans-Alaska pipeline, which starts on the North Slope at Prudhoe Bay and carries the oil down to the port at Valdez. Some of it goes underground, but because of the permafrost much of it has to be above it. It was a frequent companion on our drive north. Apparently, the same atmospheric anomalies that account for the Northern Lights also play havoc with the electronics that power the pumps and heat the pipe all the way south so the whole thing has to be shielded internally.
The highway was in pretty good shape, but parts of it felt as remote as any of the roads we encountered in New Zealand...and with a lot of the same spectacular scenery. Two lanes for the most part, and the speed limit was only 55 until we got within an hour or so of Fairbanks. Traffic very light all the way.
Stopped enroute at Eielson AFB to gas up, grab something to eat, and check out the Exchange & Commissary before checking into our cabin in the small community of North Pole, which is located about 8 miles outside of Fairbanks. As you might imagine, North Pole trades heavily on the Christmas theme...with all of the shops offering Christmas-related merchandise.
Must say that looking at towns and cities on a map of Alaska can be deceiving. I'm used to the symbology of the "lower 48" where if a town is shown as a big red dot it is, in fact, a sizeable place. Not here. For example, we passed thru a place called Copper Center on the drive up. The map symbol for it showed it as a pretty big dot so I assumed there was going to be - you know - an actual town there. Well, Copper Center is basically a Roadhouse with a hotel and cafe, a gas station, and a little museum. That's it. A few homes and very small establishments nearby but that was basically all there was. We actually drove thru and past it, thinking that the "town" had to be just ahead, before we realized that we had just missed it. Have had that happen a lot on this trip. They did have a terrific National Park Visitor Center, however, where we collected a bunch of maps and got some good information on things to see in Denali and on the Kenai peninsula, which are still ahead of us.
Had thought that Fairbanks was a pretty major city too, and by Alaskan standards it is, but the population here is only about 35,000. I keep forgetting that the population of the entire state is only 700,000 people, and that half of those live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. To say the place is rather sparsely populated is an understatement.
This is the land of eternal night (well, almost) in the winter time, and extraordinarily cold temperatures. They actually do get about 3 hours of sunlight per day here in December & January, and they say that it's actually quite pretty. Since the sun barely gets over the horizon it's basically 3 or 4 hours of dusk or dawn - take your pick. The cold is something else, however. Guess the low last winter was -62 in town, and it got down below -70 in the outlying districts. But...it's a dry cold according to the locals. Seems that any humidity in the air just crystallizes in the extreme cold so the air has a fairyland sparkle to it. The snow is so dry that you can't even make a snowball - not enough moisture for it to stick together. Supposed to be like trying to make a snowball out of sawdust.
Rita with the sunflowers outside the Fairbanks Visitor Center.
And under a canopy of Moose and Caribou antlers.
One feature that we both enjoyed was Pioneer Park near the downtown area. Years ago they started saving some of the old cabins that were scheduled to be removed to make way for new development by moving them all here. It's actually very well done (and it's free) and made for a pleasant stroll on a late summer evening. This is looking down the "Gold Rush Town" section.
Most of the cabins are from the 1900-1910 time frame, when Fairbanks was first established as a trading post along the Chena River.They found gold here too, but in this case it was much more difficult to get at since most of it was located at bedrock level...about 100 feet below the surface.
Spent most of one rainy day at the Museum of the North on the campus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Someone had previously recommended it as a great place to see while we were here, and so it was. Lots of artifacts and explanatory material about the various parts of the state, their history of settlement, and how they're doing today. Later, we stopped off at a local multi-plex to watch the last movie in the Harry Potter series.
Rita made a new friend at the museum.
Naturally there was a large display about the various gold strikes in and around this part of central Alaska, and it included this case of ore, dust, flakes, nuggets and finished jewelry. Had several nuggets of pure gold that weighed more than a pound. How much are they worth today at $1400 per ounce?
Drove back to Eielson earlier today to stock up on supplies for our upcoming two week stay in Denali. We're outta here tomorrow for the short 2 hour drive down to the park. Hoping the weather cooperates so we can get in some serious hiking while we're there...and maybe another flight seeing trip around the mountain if the sun will cooperate.
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