Well here we are on our last official date of our tour in Alaska.
We arrived into Fairbanks last night around 16:00 and quickly decided to head into town as we had a full day of touring today. This was pretty interesting. After sharing a taxi ride with 2 other travellers we arrived in downtown Fairbanks.
Thought there are many streets and avenues, the heart of the town is really only one block and there was not much to that. We stumbles across a huge tent around the corner that was attached to a Greek restaurant. It turned out this was a huge party the the owner of the restaurant puts on, on the first Saturday of September every year. It's supposed to be invitation only but once I explained we have come all the way from Australia just to see the party we were allowed entry. I'm pretty sure they like our accent and of course, I did have Connie by my side.
This party was unreal. All the food was free with live band, belly dancers and all the staff dressed in the ancient togas. We spent some time speaking with a local guy, Tim, who happened to have made his money in a gold mine that he only had 10% share of. He was very friendly and gave us a lot of his time. He explained how the town had slipped in grandeur since the pipeline had finished and a lot of the people had moved from the town. They used to have JC Penny and other high end department stores but now have only Wal Mart and Fred Meyers.
Today we jumped onto a steamboat and headed up the river. This was better than I expected with very informative commentary along the way. One in six people in Alasha have a pilots licence and it was funny to see the seaplanes "parked" along the river. We had a demonstration take off and landing as part of the tour which was pretty cool. A lot of the planes are old pre 1960 and extremely light and nimble. In the winter, the pontoons are replaced with skis and the frozen river becomes an airstrip and highway for trucks, dogs, cars and of course planes.
Further up the river we stopped at a first nation camp where we were shown how things were done before white man came along. This was also very informative and interesting with a good time had by all. After we headed back down the river to our starting point they fed us a beef stew and sent us on our way.
After a short bus trip we ended up at Gold Dredge 8 site. Once again a very informative and interesting trip into the past seeing how gold mining was down on a grand scale in the 30's and 40's. We were given our bag of Alaskan dirt and panned for gold. Connie and I came up with $30 worth of gold and of course we spent double that putting into a pendant. Well at least I did, much to Connie's disgust!
Of course, not trip to Alaska would be complete without seeing the great Alaskan Pipeline, and what an amazing piece of infrastructure this is, nearly 1,300 kilometres from the top of Alaska to the bottom. 78,000 horizontal support structures are used for the section of pipe that is above the ground. A lot of it runs under the ground. The pipe itself is 48 inches in diameter and roughly 15mm thick. The oil that is pumped and sold from the northern oil fields provides the country with 90% of it's income. A bit scary to think what will happen when the resource dries up. In the meantime, every Alaskan receives an annual dividend from the profits of a special fund the government has put aside. It averages $1,100 each year. What a great concept. I'm thinking of asking our prime minister if they will do the same back home for the coal we export when I get home.
Ok, time for dinner here so getting ready to head off. We have an early 5am start in the morning as we head back to the motherland. Might sneak one more post in but if not, thanks for following and all your posts and comments. Here is a final batch of photos. See you all soon and can someone please remind our kids to clean up before Connie gets home….
:-)
