Fairbanks—Lots of Stuff To See and Do

A great place to start your visit in Fairbanks is at the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. This structure actually looks a bit out of place with it’s ultra modern styling but I am so used to the museums up here being in old log buildings, new log buildings, small log buildings, and ugly log buildings that I may be a tad prejudiced.

It’s a big one, too. Sandy and I both do lots of reading at the individual displays and spent nearly five hours going through everything. We also got an audio device with headphones that provided extra information at various exhibits. There was a nice auditorium where 30-minute videos were running every hour and each had a different title. You could sit a while and learn something—not bad!



Fairbanks is actually a pretty small city. The local data said the city was about 32,000 people! I assumed it was larger. There is a ton of stuff to do in and around Fairbanks—I believe more so than any other place we have visited on this trip. The Chena River runs though the city so there are great restaurants located on the banks and they all have really nice decks. You can have a beer or a full dinner at numerous excellent places.




The city hosts the Fairbanks Winter Carnival during winter. Since the winter temperature will normally reach a MINUS 30° F. (that’s BELOW zero) and easily reach a MINUS 50° F., the main feature is the ice carving competition. Also, since I will never be here in the winter, pictures of the pictures of the ice carvings will have to suffice. However, Fairbanks has an Ice Museum. You see a movie about the Winter Carnival, the Ice Carving Competition, a chance to walk into a 0° F. freezer that contains numerous real ice carvings, and watch (through a window) a real person carve an elaborate ice sculpture while you wait. It was well worth the visit.


Speaking of those cold winter temperatures…
• We were told that at 30° below zero… they stopped all school field trips but classes continue.
• At 50° below zero, classes continue but if your child is absent, it is not counted against them.
• Residents outside of Anchorage may pay upwards of $1,000 per month for heat in the winter. (Apparently Anchorage residents are subsidized in some manner.)
• There are lots of receptacles where you can plug in your car.
• Wolverine fur should be sewn on your parka close to your mouth. It won’t hold condensation from your breath and freeze.
• As you can see from the sign, residents actually drive on the river at some point.
• Yes, the snowmobile sign is real and posted for a reason!






We found our first mosquitoes here. There were lots of them buzzing around the coach and you would notice them on the screens with the windows open—some pretty big, too. You would also notice them on you, too, if you stood outside for a while. Apparently, Fairbanks did have some form of primitive mosquito control as shown here in my pictures. Also, luckily, I was able to capture a picture of a real Alaskan mosquito.

We became perfect tourists in the Fairbanks area and actually started north of the city where there was/is a huge (many square miles) gold mining area. Fox is a “town” about 10 miles north of Fairbanks (I use the word “town” loosely because we couldn’t find two buildings even setting close together).

This is important because Fox is in the middle of this gold mining district and is the home of the Silver Gulch Brewery—America’s most northern brewery/brewpub. Being a beer fan, I always try to sample a local brewski. The beer was good, the food was good, and the inside was very nice—not just another “bar.” It’s one of the very few places in North America that offers a “scotch egg” as an appetizer. If you are in “town,” I recommend the Silver Gulch Brewery and a scotch egg.

Gold was discovered about 100 years ago and this area was inundated with miners ranging from individuals to companies with industrial equipment. They literally stripped the top of the land down to the bedrock since the gold (over a gazillion-years old) works its way down through the soil and settles on the bedrock.

Some companies used water cannons (like a fire hose on steroids) to sort of wash/melt/blow off the topsoil and gravel layer (sometimes many feet thick). The resulting mud would be washed down a “placer” where the gold would settle to the bottom while the rocks and dirt would wash away. The placer is a ribbed trough designed to force the mud and water to run down an incline while any gold is captured in between the ribs. It works.







We wanted to tour the gold fields and started with the El Dorado Gold Mine. This was an excellent two-hour tour consisting of a short narrow-gage train ride, good explanations of the gold field mining operation and equipment, and concluded with a demonstration of placer mining. You can see part of the long placer in the pictures—the guy sitting and panning gold is actually in the middle of the placer just so we all can see the demonstration. Water would run where he is sitting.

They use a LOT of water! Enough so that rocks the size of tennis balls would be washed away. You wonder why the gold doesn’t wash away but it is 8-10 times heavier than the rocks so as the gold is shaken up with the water, rocks, and dirt, it sinks to the bottom where they trap it. Now, in this operation, they actually trapped the gold in (I swear this is the truth) Astroturf (that fake, green, grass-like product). The “grass blades” on the Astroturf somehow trap the gold plus some of the really fine dirt that didn’t wash away.

The residual gold and dirt is then hand-panned just like the early miners did it 100 years ago—yes, using a traditional gold pan (check the pictures). The result is gold—lots of small flakes and sometimes (with a lot of luck) a nugget.

The El Dorado Gold Mine is a tourist attraction but also a working gold mine run by two people and a lot of high-school help. Thier operation is actually going through the “tailings”—the leftover dirt that the previous mining attempts left piled up. There are huge piles of tailings that seem to stretch for miles. With gold currently at over $900 per ounce, you can make some money.



The tour ended with a chance to actually pan for gold. They give you a “poke” (small bag with dirt and, hopefully, gold), demonstrate how to use the pan, and you do the work. At the El Dorado Gold Mine, their guarantee is that everyone will find at least eight pieces of gold or they will give you another poke. If you don’t have eight pieces when you finish with the second poke, they will give you a third poke but this time, they keep an eye on you! You get to keep what you find and they give you a small plastic container to keep it in.

Then you take your new-found gold inside the gift shop and they will weigh it and give you an estimated value at the current gold market price. Our combined effort was worth $21.00. No, they don’t buy this gold from you—it’s yours. You can have it put into a locket.


On another day, we visited Gold Dredge No. 8. This was a former industrial gold mining operation that had five of these huge dredges working together at one time. The dredge would continuously scoop up the dirt and dumped it inside the dredge and, just like the smaller placer operation, lots of water would initially separate it. The gold (even gold dust) would end up being caught with mercury. The amalgamation of the gold and mercury would solidify. Later, they would fire the pellets, melt it, recapture the mercury, and the gold would be poured into ingots (gold bars at about 27 pounds each). Just think, at today’s gold prices, one ingot would be worth about $350,000! Amazing operation. Good tour.


Still another touristy thing we did is sail on the Riverboat Discovery. This is a sternwheeler (paddle boat) and the 3.5-hour tour in on the Chena River. This was also a good tour. Luckily, the weather was great for our entire stay in Fairbanks.



Part of that boat trip was a stop at a dog kennel. Since the kennel was on the riverfront, we all stayed on the boat and everyone could see really well. Dog teams are a serious sport up here and professional “mushers” are nearly the equivalent of sports superstars. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (1,150 miles) and the Yukon Quest (1,000 miles) are the two big races, lasting many days, and are considered some of the toughest competitive events in the world.

The sled dogs are smaller than I thought. They are actually somewhat lean and muscular. They have one goal in life—to pull that sled! We were told that’s all they want to do.

Here is a short video showing what happens when they are given the command to go. For the demo, the dog team was harnessed to an ATV—remember, it was summer so no snow and no sleds. The video will be brief and may seem like it’s on fast-forward—but it’s real. You will be amazed at how fast those dogs can go from a dead stop.





In driving around outside of Fairbanks, we saw a nice pull-off next to the pipeline and gave us a chance to walk right up and touch it. I mentioned seeing the pipeline in an earlier blog but this visit was worthwhile since it was up close and personal.