Category Archives: travel

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):

Whereas Anchorage was cool, cloudy, and rainy, our next destination was marginally warmer, still cloudy, but relatively dry.  Our Boeing 737 took only thirty-eight minutes to make the 260-mile flight, and we were greeted with a high of 68° F (20° C) which, with no precipitation, was a welcome change.

Don’t let some of the modern buildings pictured below fool you.  Fairbanks retains much of its historical flavor from its 1901 founding along the banks of the Chena River.  And don’t let the title of this blog lead you astray.  Fairbanks isn’t so named because it was founded along the banks of the Chena River.  It was named after the 26th Vice President of the United States—Charles W. Fairbanks—who in 1904 ran on the Republican ticket with Theodore Roosevelt.

There are several impressive examples of  Art Deco architecture, from the 1932 combination Post Office and Courthouse to the Lacey Street Theater, which now houses the Fairbanks Ice Museum (Motto:  Our Assets are Frozen).  Several buildings feature elaborate painted murals.  The Antler Arch is billed as, “The Gateway to Downtown Fairbanks.”  As you walk along the Chena River and into Golden Heart Park, you’ll also come across statues commemorating the first native settlers of the area, and a monument to the Lend-Lease program.  And, as with Anchorage, colorful flowers abound everywhere you turn, presenting the photographer with lots of interesting images to capture.

It’s a tad cool up here in the Great North.  If y0u read my last blog entry, then you know that Ursula and I left for another of our adventures.  On Monday we were in Anchorage, Alaska.  Sky conditions—cloudy with drizzling rain most of the day.  Temperatures—high of 63° F (17° C).  This is what passes for summer in Anchorage.  After almost a month string of 100°+ F (38°+ C) temperatures in El Paso, pretty half-baked, wouldn’t you say?

I shouldn’t be surprised.  The last time I was in Anchorage was in mid-August, 1972, and it was pretty much the same thing then—cool and damp.  I will say this for Anchorage, though; the city makes good use of their 20+ hours of sunshine this time of year by growing some spectacular flowers.  They were everywhere.

We also took a trip to the Alaska Zoo, which specializes in Arctic and sub-Arctic animals.

Walking back to our hotel from downtown, we found ourselves strolling through some very charming neighborhoods with some really quaint, yet architecturally striking homes.

What follows are some of the many sights we beheld during our first full day in Alaska, having arrived Sunday evening the day before.