Fairbanks Riverboat Discovery, Wednesday, July 22, 2009

We spent a week in Fairbanks at this WalMart Super Center. I like the design, much like a western town. We were able to "dump" our gray & black water and pick up fresh water at several gas stations in the city who provide the free service.


Wednesday, we decided to do a very "touristy" thing and ride this riverboat down the Chena River, which flows through Fairbanks.

Many tour ships have their passengers ride this riverboat and today was no exception. This is the Discovery III, run by a family for many years. It is a stern wheeler as opposed to a side wheeler.

While on the boat we were given a float plane demonstration where a pilot took off and landed right on the river. These pilots become quite skilled at short take-offs and landings!

See the quick climb-out!

This is the Pumphouse, a restaurant right on the river. There was one similar to this in Homosassa, Florida, until it burned to the ground. Sadly, they have not rebuilt the one in Homosassa.

This is a modern log "cabin" or should I say, "house" right on the river. I could live in this one! (At least in the summer- remember that it is Alaska!)

This is a unique, sod-roofed house on the river with a tarp on top of the sod, held down by old tires. As I have said before, Alaska is full of unique individuals!

This is the riverfront home of the senior owners of the Discovery III. It was beautiful and not ostentatious. I am sure they are multi-millionaires!

Our next stop of the trip was the riverfront home of Susan Butcher, to see about Iditerod dogs. These are her children, at least two of them. Susan died in 1996 of cancer. I do not know which of the older two are hers but the youngest girl is hers. They have some husky puppies they are training. Susan's husband still runs the kennels she started.

Here the husband is showing all about the dogs and the training. He has a team hitched up to the ATV. The ATV has no engine in it. It is just a shell.

This is an unique houseboat, found on the river! Again, the free spirit people of Alaska.

We rode the riverboat to the confluence of the Chena with the Tanana River. The Chena is fresh water and the Tanana is a glacier fed river, full of silt. Can you see the distinct line of the brown Chena with the grey Tanana?

Our next stop on the river was a reconstructed Athabascan Indian village on the river. They raise Reindeer for food and this is their herd.

This is one of their beds in a temporary hunting lean to. It has fur on top of spruce or hemlock boughs.

Here is one of their birch bark canoes. It appears very fragile.

One of the native girls shows a dress made of skins and fancy beadwork. It was very beautiful.

This Athabascan girl, a college student, showed us all sorts of animal hides and their uses in their clothing.

Here she shows us the beautiful parka, made by her grandmother. It is made of all skins and fur.

The same girl explains how they prepare mooses hide for clothing. It is quite a process!

This is a temporary hunting hut made of birch bark.

This is a fish camp, which they set up in the summers to catch & process fish for the winter. They catch the Salmon with the fish wheel, cut it, dry it and store it.

This is a fish wheel in the water, actually working. The current going down stream turns it and the salmon swimming upstream get scooped out of the river.

Here are some fish filets drying before they are smoked.

This girl shows us how they filet and score the fish filets so the smoke flavor will penetrate the flesh.

Here the fish are hung in the smoke house to give them flavor, and also keeping the flies off while preserving them.
This shows the lean to and the hide huts they used when chasing caribou herds during the fall hunting seasons.

Here is a closeup of the hide hut. The opening in the top is for the smoke from the fire. These were portable.

At the end of the ride, here are the cruise ship buses lined up to take their passengers back to their ships.

This shows the forest fire in the distance.

Inside the gift shop was this diplay of Susan Butcher and her lead dogs and the sled which she used to win 4 Iditerod Races and place in the top ten of all the 17 races she entered. She also won 3 years in a row! She may have been the first woman to win this race. It is a 1041 mile race from Willow outside of Anchorage to Nome.

Mail Plane Inside Artic Circle, July 21, 2009

We decided to spend more of our children's inheritance & fly with a mail plane to some remote Eskimo villages in the Artic Circle. We flew on Tuesday, July 21st from Fairbanks. We spent a week in a Walmart Parking Lot in Fairbanks. (So we could afford to fly! :-) )

This is the plane we flew in, a twin engine Piper Navajo. There were only four of us and the pilot on the trip out and only the pilot and the two of us on the return flight. One of the outgoing passengers was an Eskimo from Anatuvuk Pass, and the other was a young girl, by our standards (Ha,Ha), about late 20's early 30's. She was going to the town of Bettles, our first stop.

I don't know if you can see but there are float planes alongside the shore of this remote lake. Maybe they are all fishing? We think so.

This is the Bettles gravel airstrip, our first stop. This dirt runway has a full instrument landing system!

The girl in the yellow flew in and her friends met her there and unloaded all sorts of food, including canned milk. The friends are unloading into the pickup truck bed. We're always walking on gravel.

The little fellow on the left is the Eskimo man. He had been in Fairbanks for the Indian-Eskimo Olympics, which we missed by one day because of Denali.

This is Anatuvuk Pass, the second stop on our flight. It is way up into the Artic and lies between two mountains, obviously. The town is just over the horizon.

Anatuvuk Pass is also the name of the village which is seen on the upper left. In the foreground is a glacier river called a braided river. I think it is the John's River. The airstrip here is also gravel with a full instrument landing system!

This village of about 360 people have electricity which is provided by large generators. These generators are supplied by these diesel tanks which are refilled when needed by special planes, which fly in the fuel.

This is a street scene from Anatuvuk. There are a few cars and trucks here.

Most people here run around in ATVs.

Instead of a car parked out front of this house, it is an ATV.

This is a eight wheel ATV, maybe the "Cadillac" version? Maybe it goes better over water, I don't know.

This is a typical Eskimo home with the entryway outside the house, to keep out the cold, I imagine. This home was neatly painted; all homes are not this nice. They are all small, though.

This is Inupiat Community Artic Slope Search & Rescue building.

This is Lynda by the airplane wing, on the runway, at about 5pm in the late afternoon. It had been in the 80's when we left but the temperature on this high pass was cold and it was windy.

This is one of the street scenes with a teenage boy walking by in the red shirt. There is no pavement in this town anywhere, not even at the airport.

As you can see from this street scene, most travel on ATV's. The second one even has a cover of sorts.

This is a street beside the runway. The fella on the ATV is standing up as he drives it.

Here is another house in the village & the same teenager as he walks by, remember the one in the red shirt? He is smiling. He was very cute!

This is George, the pilot, and Jim, the passanger, in the front seats of the plane. The pilot was very good and actually was also a flight instructor.

This is a canyon wall in John's River Pass. Rugged mountains, I think!

This is a cabin on a remote lake we spotted as we flew back to Fairbanks. There are no roads here so flying in is necessary. Obviously, no electricity; They call it being "Off the Grid".

This is an aerial view of the dirt Dalton Highway, which goes north from Fairbanks to Prudhoe. Alongside it on the right is the Alaskan oil pipeline.

This is a view of Fireweed which is growing right after the devistation of a forest fire. This is why it is named fireweed, because it is the first things to grow after the fire. You can see exactly where the fire had gone along the tops of these mountains.

Here is poor Lynda, relegated to the back seat in the airplane! (Ha, Ha) Actually she chose this seat for the view!

This is our approach to the Fairbanks Airport. It is coming in over the Tanana River. Fairbanks is in the upper right of the picture and the runway in the upper left.