Alaska Day 15, Betting on a Breakup

Day 15

 Saturday June 16

    According to the National Weather Service, Denali National Park had a sixty percent chance of rain.  Knowing I had some driving to do anyway, I chose a pair of shorter trails to tackle.  They weren’t very difficult, but the three miles of walking felt good, especially ahead of the drive.

     Another Alaska moment, while packing the car, a moose strolls casually through the field behind the motel.  Were was the camera, in the room of course.

     The first trail is simply called Mountain View.   The thermometer on the Jeep said it was forty-eight degrees.  The gusting winds made for a chilly walk.  No complaints, it was ninety in Atlanta. 

     As described, a mountain view.

     Scattered along the trail are also markers giving the history of this area.  The local tribes referred to the mountain as Denali.  In 1896, a prospector named William Dickey named it McKinley after the future president. He was only a candidate at the time.  When I was in the park seven years ago, the mountain was in the process of reverting to its original name.

       Mount McKinley National Park was signed into being in 1917 by President Harrison. Just a couple of years later, this area became the site of Savage Camp.  If you were visiting the park, you could stay in their canvas tents. There were even food services available.  The park road was still under construction and going was rough.  The railroad came to the park in 1920, but the trains arrived at midnight and the camp staff didn’t pick people up until morning.  When the park service convinced the railroad to adjust its schedule, the number of visitors went up dramatically.  And it all happened right here.

      The second trail was just a loop through the woods.  Pleasant enough and a good way to get some miles in on my legs.

     But, it was time to go.  Fairbanks awaited.   I made a brief stop at Three Bears before heading out. It’s a combination grocery store, liquor store, hardware store and sporting goods store.  It’s actually quite impressive.

     Eventually, I pulled into the town of Nenana, home of the Nenana Ice Classic.  Every winter, a large metal tripod is placed three hundred feet from shore, equidistant between the road and railroad bridges. The ice can be three feet thick when they do this.  They dig holes for the legs, fill them with water and let them freeze, securing the tripod.  A rope line is attached to the tripod with one hundred feet of slack.

     When the ice starts to melt and the tripod has moved that hundred feet, it stops a clock and that’s deemed the official time for that season’s ice breakup.  People buy tickets based on their best guess and the proceeds go to charity.  It started out as a six person bet in 1906.  The jackpot grew as more people in town started betting.   In 2014, the final jackpot came in at over $360,000.

     As you drive into town,  the tugboat Taku Chief is hard to miss. It was in service until 1978, restored and displayed here. It's claim to fame is being the last wooden tugboat to serve here.

     When I pulled over to take that photo, I was pleasantly surprised to find a free book exchange.  I left the two books I had picked up at the ferry terminal and finished, picking up two more.   Bonus!

     There's also a memorial to the Alaskan Territorial Guard, a unit of over six thousand Alaskan volunteers who stood guard along the state's northern border during World War II.  They were also observing and reporting Japanese activity since they had already landed and were occupying two of the Aleutian Islands.

     This is how you know you've gone far enough north to be in what's known as Alaska's interior...

     The only place open for lunch was the Rough Woods Inn.  The attached restaurant had eight tables.  One person was waiting tables and one in the kitchen.  Service was still pretty fast, and the sandwich hit the spot.  It's also a microbrewery.  They're Hefeweizen, I've had better.

     One more story from Nenana.  In 1923, Alaska Railroad completely it’s line between Seward and Fairbanks.  President Warren Harding was on hand and drove in the ceremonial last spike.
     Back on the road to Fairbanks.  This isn't something you see every day.

     Fairbanks began as a trading post in 1901 only due to its central location.  Being in the middle of the middle of nowhere has its advantages.  Two years later, the temporary post became permanent when gold was discovered in the area and prospectors flooded in. 

     Twenty years later, the gold fields were drying up and people were moving on.  By then, the railroad was reaching Fairbanks.  The area had its second gold rush as larger pieces of equipment were now available for digging and mining. 

     Fairbanks had yet another boon when oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay and the city became a major shipping point for equipment heading north.  You can still drive to Prudhoe Bay from Fairbanks along the Dalton Highway.  Out of curiosity, I did ask the agent if my Jeep was rated for that road.  It’s notoriously hard on tires.  She said it was indeed.  I decided not to try it on this trip.  It's five hundred miles and over four hundred of those miles are unpaved.  However, driving to the Arctic Circle does seem intriguing.  You can see what I mean here.

     Like a lot of cities with a river running through them, there’s a nice riverside park in downtown Fairbanks.  Like many if these cities, it’s also part of the flood control plan.  Fairbanks learned their lesson in 1967 when much of the downtown area flooded. 

     That’s where I decided to ditch the car and walk around a bit. That’s also where I discovered the first cell service I had in a week.  So, I caught up with the texts and called Mom.  I was sitting in the shade by this clock tower. 

     I had to move. Every fifteen minutes it played music as if with church bells.   It was a nice chat with Mom and I updated her on the trip.  Believe it or not, this was the very last cell service I had until I changed planes in Portland, Oregon on the way home.  It felt a little weird.

     Ironically enough, while I had been on this trip, the merger between Time Warner and AT&T got the approval from the courts.  I’ve been reading the Facebook chatter and apparently we now get discounts on AT&T cell service.  It also means I've now worked for Turner Broadcasting, Time Warner, AOL/Time Warner and now AT&T.  

     In the riverfront park there’s a fountain celebrating Fairbanks history.

     There’s also a monument commemorating a WWII  program called Women Air Force Service Pilots.  Twenty-five thousand women volunteered for a thousand pilot positions.  They transported servicemen, flew brand new planes from the factories to their delivery destinations and acted as flight instructors as well as test pilots.  

      The Ice Museum caught my eye,but I  didn’t go in.   I did check out their website.  It's a very cold building full of intricate ice sculptures.

     Fairbanks in bloom...

     Eventually, I did find my way to the Best Western Pioneer Park.  From the parking lot, there’s a short path to a footbridge that leads to Pioneer Park, celebrating everything about the Alaskan Interior.  

     There are railroad rides for the kids, as well as a few museums.  Yes, the water tank is standing a bit crooked.

    I went into the museum dedicated to Alaskan aviation history.  There are a lot of displays and stories chronicling the early days of aviation and how some of these pilots flew from town to town in some of the worst conditions.  I never really gave it much thought, but many pilots did just disappear on these flights.

Coming Up,

A Yukon Quest