First we took one of the most well done boat tours we've ever done. it was a paddle boat down the Chena River that runs through Fairbanks.
Our tour guide was extremely informative having settled in the area in the 1960's, he had many stories about local heros and notable folks who made Fairbanks home. We started the trip with a bush plane takeoff right beside us, planned but effective! The pilot was miked in to the ship speaker so our pilot could talk to him making it very intimate.
Next we passed some beautiful homes while our guide described life in the area and how for 9 months of the year it is dryer than the Sahara Desert with virtually no wind such that 40 below doesn't seem cold and how when the River freezes they make it their roadway and are not huddled away in the winter as it feels warmer than many of our cities. The homes were just gorgeous, many made from white spruce logs.
The River spills into the Tananna River and we learned that when the glaciers melt, the Tanana River rises forcing the Chena back up by a considerable amount.
Next we went by the home of the most famous woman Iditarod Musher of all time, Susan Butcher. while she tragically died of Leukemia, we were miked into talk to her husband and daughter and see a demonstration of her dogs in action! Granite is a book about her fantastic lead dog with whom she won so many years.
next up...reindeer! we learned reindeer are domesticated caribou!
The next part of the tour was very unique. We made a stop at what was set up like an Athabasca Indian village with Univ of Alaska students who were all Indians from the area to tell us about their heritage of fishing, trapping, hunting, and sewing. These kids were very knowledable as well as proud of their history...
our first demo filleted salmon for us and then showed how it was dried and smoked!
next we learned about how hides were tanned and clothes were made using all the parts of various game and how you could identify the tribe by the various specific designs...
And finally trapping and hunting...
And one of the best parts for me...meeting an actual Iditarod Musher and her dogs!
What a fun time! They topped the trip off with salmon appetizers on the way back!
Back on shore we got to experience 40 below...no matter how dry, it is COLD!
Later today we toured the Univeristy of Alaska Museum of the North, just first rate! It covered everything from paleontology to Indian history to the gold rush to the arctic to area wildlife and WWII. Such a varied and interesting history.
One thing that really touched us both was a part of WWII we never heard about. They told the story of the Forced Evacuation of the Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands to Alaska in WWII where we put them basically in internment and treated them worse than prisoners of war were treated. It was a fascinating and tragic story of bad military communication and people that we almost made extinct due to horrific conditions all because we supposedly wanted them out of harms way originally.
A great and informative day!
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