Fairbanks is a large city with a population of 31,000 where
the Chena River runs through the middle of the city. There is a lot to see and do in this
city. We will be visiting Fairbanks for
five days.
After 200 miles and 4 hours we arrive at Riverview RV Park
in North Pole (just outside of Fairbanks).
Riverview sits alongside of Chena River.
It’s a fairly nice park that is clean and well maintained. There is cable TV with HBO, Showtime and
Starz, and free WiFi, but weak signal.
We won’t spend much time here as we will be busy seeing the sights.
Downtown Fairbanks
First thing we did was go downtown and look for a place to
eat dinner. While there we explored a
few blocks and checked out some shops.
Many of the downtown commercial buildings enjoy low space
heating costs because they are hooked up to a steam and hot water system piped
beneath the streets. There are 23 “snorkles”
scattered throughout downtown that provide air intake and exhaust. Because they are boring to look at, in 2012,
they became an art project; “Art in the Heart: Paint the Pipes”. We walked around and found several of them.
University of Alaska, Museum
of the North
The University of Alaska is a very large campus with lots
of modern buildings and beautiful landscaping.
The Museum of the North is on campus and the building itself is of
interesting architecture. The museum is
two levels of Alaska culture, wildlife, geography and history. There is an Art Gallery of Alaskan art and an
auditorium where we saw a movie on Winter in Alaska. This is well worth the time to visit this
place.
In some of the rural areas, an outhouse is still used when there is no indoor plumbing. So the people dress up their outhouses and make them as ornate as possible.
Santa Claus House
Of course, there has to be a Christmas store in the town of
North Pole. The Santa Claus House is a
large, festive building full of holiday goodies. If you ever visit North Pole, you must see the Santa
Claus’ house.
Large Animal Research Station
This is part of the University of Alaska. They research Muskox and Reindeer. We spent a short time here. We did a tour where an energetic college student
told us all about muskox and reindeer and the research they are doing. Very interesting.
Great Alaskan Bowl Company
This is an interesting place to visit. They are one of only a few bowl mills left in
operation in America. They use machinery
designed over a hundred years ago. They can
make up to 8 one-piece solid birch hardwood bowls ranging from 7 inches to 22
inches in diameter all from a singe split length of birch. That way all the bowls match with the same
grain and pattern. Their bowls are
beautiful, but very expensive. It’s an
interesting place to visit.
Georgeson Botanical Garden
This garden is also part of the University of Alaska. It started out as a research garden in 1989. It’s
a small garden but has a nice layout and beautiful plants and flowers.
Mom bird - no eggs yet.
Pioneer Park
Is a 44-acre park showcasing the history of Fairbanks. This park opened in 1967 as the Alaska 67
Centennial Exposition, which celebrated the 100-anniversary of the purchase of
Alaska from Russia. The park has many of
Fairbanks’s early cabins and buildings which have been moved from their original
locations. Admission is free.
We visited the Pioneer Museum and explored some of the
buildings, which are now shops. It was
in one of the shops that we found out about the Midnight Sun Festival that was
happening that day in downtown Fairbanks.
So, after an hour or so we headed downtown.
Buddy loves posing for tips
Midnight Sun Festival
This festival celebrates the summer solstice which happened
on June 21st. It was the
longest day of the year in Alaska, where the sun never sets and it is daylight
for 24 hours.
It was real busy downtown.
Three blocks of activities, bands, arts and crafts booths, food booths,
children’s section, etc. This festival
continued way past midnight. This is our
last night in Fairbanks, so we stayed a few hours and then headed “home”.
From Fairbanks we travel south on the George Parks Highway
into Denali National Park.
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