Our North Pole Excursion and Pioneer Park

Our foray into the Alaskan interior was pretty eventful both Wednesday and Thursday.  On Wednesday, we hiked a couple miles along the Chema River to Fairbanks’ Pioneer Park.  What an incredible deal!  Entry is free, and you get far more than you paid for in return.  Pioneer Park has many old structures that were relocated from various places around Fairbanks and reassembled in the park.  Each structure has a little plaque denoting its individual history.

Also residing in the park is the S.S. Nenana, a paddle steamer that plied the waters of the Yukon, Nenana, and Tanana Rivers from 1933 until its retirement in 1955.

Near the S.S. Nenana is an unnamed hero of the Panama Canal, the Davidson Ditch, and a veteran of projects in far away Hawaii.  It’s a rusted out steam shovel that has seen better days and deserves better preservation than it’s received to date.  But at least this little piece of history is available for viewing today.

As for paid attractions, Pioneer Park hosts a tour-guided railroad and a small but rather unique aviation museum, both of which I can highly and enthusiastically recommend.

On Thursday we began our long, arduous North Pole trek.  We hopped a bus, took off to the east southeast, and forty minutes later found ourselves in North Pole, Alaska.  You thought I meant the North Pole.  Nope.  I’m talking about that other North Pole.  This is the North Pole that gets all those letters mailed to Santa Claus every year during that very special time, and the main attraction and claim to fame is an establishment known as Santa Claus House.  This small town comes replete with Holiday-themed street names and streetlights disguised as enormous candy canes.

And, as usual, here are the pictorial highlights for both Pioneer Park and North Pole check out the first photograph for the sunrise and sunset times for August 3 in this part of Alaska):