Alaska 2014 Week 9

July 18 Today Jim and I rode out to the Artic Circle Outpost.  Ten years ago we went here and asked to park out motorhome overnight in their parking lot while we rode out to the Article Circle in our jeep.  We met the owner the Carlson’s and 4 of their 23 children.  I was fascinated by this family when I read a book written by one of their daughters, called The Homestead Kid by Cherie Curtis.  It is a wonderful story of how they got their start in Alaska.  You can order it off Amazon.com if anyone is interested.  I happened to buy my copy from their store 10 years ago.  I read it in one evening and could not put it down til I finished it.  I wanted to go visit them again this year and find out how they were and how children were doing.  I knew the children would be grown because the youngest, Molly, was 11, then and she is now 21.  And sure enough all the children are grown and married and all have moved away.  About half of the kids have left Alaska and half are still in Alaska but the live in Fairbanks and Anchorage.  It was fun catching up with their mom and dad and getting caught up with the kids.  The Carlsons now have 44 grandchildren.  How awesome is that.  Life is about to change for Nancy and Joe Carlson because of the renewed interest in gold mining in Livengood 16 miles from their homestead.  They are expecting power to come their way within the next two years.  Can you image, they have lived off the grid since 1974, have raised 23 children with no electricity, no running water, no sewer hookups and now that they have raised their family,  power is coming their way.  I don’t think they would change a thing though.  When I met their children 10 years ago they were very happy and content with their lives.  In fact I asked their 13 year old daughter how their parents survived raising all those children without TV or cartoons and she said we don’t need TV, we have our books and our animals that’s all we need.  I was so impressed.  We had heard that a company was gold mining in Livengood.  Supposedly, a billionaire, and a millionaire setup a gold mining business.  We met a miner at Chena Hot Springs who came up from Florida to work the mine.  He said there is lots of gold to be found.  Then when we were at the Artic Circle Outpost to young men came in and I started talking with them and turns out they are working for the goldmine in Livengood.  They confirmed they are finding gold.  We saw a couple of other gold mining operations along the way to Livengood.  They were small operations but they did have some large equipment.  So exciting times for folks in the Livengood area.  The pictures below show a picture of the store, Nancy and I in the store, and an old picture of some of the kids and  Nancy and Joe.  It also shows some of the pipeline we saw along the way to Livengood, and some of the gold mining operations we saw along the way to Livengood.  These are just some small operations.

July 19  Today Jim and I went with Mem and Larry to the Farmers Market then over to the Harley Davidson store.  It turned out to be a very nice day so we decided to go over to Pioneer Park which is a unique state park which contains lots of old cabins that were once located downtown Fairbanks and moved to the park.  There are signs hanging outside the buildings telling you who lived in them, where they were located and what they were used for.  There were a couple of museums, including an air museum which Larry and Jim really enjoyed (Mem and I chose to wait outside for them), lots of neat vendors, lots of  eateries, an antique car show, an actual river boat that contained awesome dioramas of towns of its actual route on the Chena River back in the 1800’s.  There was so much to see here that we ended up spending the whole afternoon here.   

 

July 20  From Fairbanks we went to Tok, Alaska we got gas and ate lunch at Fast Eddies. 

That evening we spent the night in a roadside pullout.

July 21  We continued on our way to Chicken, Alaska.  We stayed at a campground at Chicken where they offered more gold panning.  Of course I had to give it a try; but I came up empty handed.  I was too tired to do another pan.  It’s too bad because there was no charge for panning.  Jim and I got an ice cream sandwich and we were sitting out front of the little camp store eating our ice cream and we got to talking with another couple when another guy who was camping there with his family drove up in an authentic 1901 Duryea car and offered to give us a ride in the car.  I jumped at the chance.  We took off down the road and the next thing I know he turned the steering over to me.  I told him oh no please be ready to take over if it looks like I’m going to crash.  He just chuckled and said don’t worry I will.  Next he gave Jim a ride and Jim said he really enjoyed it.  The man told me he spotted the car in some lady’s front yard.  She was using it as a planter for flowers.  He asked her if it was for sale.  She said her husband thought it was an eye sore and asked if he would give $100 for it.  He said he couldn’t get his money out fast enough.  He fixed it up and has been driving it ever since.  He is from Kentucky.  He and his wife have an RV and he trailered the Duryea all the way from Kentucky.  He unloads it at every campground and gives rides everywhere he stops. What a treat that was. 

July 22  Today Mem and I have read the book, called Tisha, which is a true story about a 19 year old girl who came to Chicken in 1927 to teach school.  It is a beautiful story and we just loved the book.  Well it turned out the Campground owner owns the property where the original school and cabin is located where Tisha taught and lived in.  The owner’s father, Spike, is a retired school teacher himself, and gave a tour and took us over to see the school house and Tisha’s cabin.  We actually got to go inside these buildings.  It was pretty neat and Spike was a wealth of information and he liked to tell stories.  It was such a neat tour.  As soon as we got back from the tour, we jumped in our motorhomes and off we went.  We were headed to Dawson City, Canada and we wanted to make sure we got to the border crossing before they closed.  But first we had to tackle the Top of The World Road.  This road is 109 miles of mostly gravel road.  We had heard that 2 motorhomes had gone over the edge at two different times this month so we were a little apprehensive about the trip but we knew we would take it slow and easy.  And that’s what we did.  When a vehicle approached from the opposite direction, we just stopped and let them pass.  We think those motorhomes that went over the edge got over to far and the shoulders of the road are just soft gravel with no guard rails so it is very easy to go over.  We actually saw the areas where they went over.  It was kind of eerie seeing the spots where they went over.  Thank goodness they both hit trees rather than slid all the way down the mountains but they still slid down far enough to total their motorhomes.  Anyway we did just fine.  We got to the Yukon River and we drove our motorhome on the ferry and rode across to Dawson City.  You have to stay inside your vehicles when you go across on the ferry.  The dogs were a little nervous but they did just fine.  We are staying at the Bonanza Creek Campground.  We will be here for 3 nights.  Bonanza Creek is where all the gold mining is going on and it is the original creek that made Dawson City famous.

July 23  Today, Jim, me and Mem went out exploring the city.  Mem and I are collecting Passport Stamps for a chance at winning 5 ounces of gold.  We only need 1 more stamp.  It was kind of fun riding around getting our stamps.  It forces you to check out  places you might not normally know about.  On our way to Dredge #4 to get a number stamp, we came upon a Claim 33 Gold Mining Tourist activity.  We stopped in to talk to the people and they were so nice.  Next thing you know I decided to do some gold panning and sure enough I found some gold.  There were some good size chunks.  It was well worth the stop.  We continued on to Dredge #4.  Jim was so excited.  The dredge is huge and in very good shape.  It is not a working dredge anymore; they just use it to give tours now.  There is still a lot of mining going on today in various creeks around here.  The price of gold is causing people to start mining for pacer gold now and there is tons and tons of pacer dirt around Dawson.  This evening we went to the show at Diamond Gerties.  It was really a great show.  Before the show I played the slots for a little bit and played a little blackjack.  Back in the day, there really was a lady called Diamond Gertie.  She had a gold tooth and she had a diamond inserted in her tooth just because she could.  Supposedly the dance hall ladies charged $5 a dance.  And the gold miners would work in the gold mines all day and come to the dance hall at night and through nuggets at the dance hall girls on stage.  They said when the gold rush was over the miners left broke and the dance all girls left rich. 

July 24  Today Jim and I and Larry and Mem rode up the rode called Dome Rode.  It is the highest point in Dawson City.  It has awesome views of the city and the Yukon River.  It was beautiful up there. From there we went to the little town and did some shopping and then to Sourdough Joe’s for lunch.  After lunch we went to the Dawson City Museum.  We had stopped by there the other day and noticed they were showing some movies that we wanted to come back and watch.  Once we watched it we realized it was narrated by the son of an author of a  book that me, Jim and Mem had read called, I Married the Klondike by Laura Beatrice Berton.  It was a great book and we all three really loved the book,.  The movie talked about his father, Frank.  And the three of us realized Frank was Laura’s husband.  So at the end of the movie, we asked the man running the movie if he knew anything about Laura and where her house was in Dawson.  He knew all about the book, where her husband Frank worked (in the building we were standing in) and where her house was.  So needless to say we left the museum to take pictures of Laura’s house.  Jim and Larry went to look at a locomotive on display at the museum and before you knew it the day was over.  We all agreed it was a wonderful stay in Dawson City.

Alaska 2014 Week 8

July 11  Today we went to the Anchorage Museum.  What a wonderful museum.  It is huge so naturally we didn’t get to see the whole thing but we watched a movie about the Eskimos and how they made their clothing and the detail that went into the making of their clothing.  You really get a full appreciation after going through this museum of how long it took to make the clothing and what the different designs meant.  For example a parka was made from antelope intestines and the intestines were cleaned and stretched and laid out to dry and this process took weeks then they split the intestines apart and it was like tissue paper and they had to take great care sewing all the layers together to form the parker and then they decorated it with tiny bird feathers and tiny beads that again took weeks to do.  It was very elaborate and time consuming work.  With no electricity for light and probably no eye glasses.  After we watched the movie then walked around the museum and looked at all the outfits we had such an appreciation for the workmanship that went to the making of them.  It was so so interesting.  Then another section we enjoyed was the building of the pipeline.  Some things never change.  They had the technology, and the manpower but politics delayed the building of the pipeline for years.  And last but not least, we enjoyed the gold rush exhibits.  We spent a good part of the day at the museum and didn’t come close to seeing everything but we certainly enjoyed what we did see.

July 12 Today we went gold panning at Crow Creek Mine.  It is located three miles from Girwood, Alaska.  This mining operation was started in 1898 and some of the original buildings like the Blacksmith’s shop, Barn, Ice House, Commissary, Mine Owner’s Cabin, Mess Hall, Meat Cache, and Bunk Hall still stand today.  We only had shovels and gold pans to work with, but people who come on a regular basis that are so called amateur gold miners came with portable gold sluths and one guy had panned about $250 worth of gold while we were there.  Jim and I only found 4 flakes in our pay dirt that was given to us when we paid to get in.  But our friends Larry and Mem found at least 2 more flakes over what they found in their pay dirt that came with their entrance fee.  It was fun though and we are getting more experience at gold panning.

  

July 13  To day we went to the Alaska Wildberry Product store.  This store is known for its huge chocolate falls.  (like in waterfalls only chocolate falls).  Jim loves chocolate so it was hard to keep him from catching a drink from the falls haha.  It smelled so wonderful too.  This store had a little bit of everything from tons of candy, t-shirts, jams, hats, sweatshirts, jewelry, books etc.  We spent a lot of time shopping around and yes we did buy a lot of chocolate.

July 14  We arrived in Fairbanks.  We are staying at the Riverview Campground.  It’s kind of rainy today so we mapped out what we want to do for the week and decided to catch up on things in the motorhome and our reading.  Mem and I decided to check out the North Pole, AK.  It was very neat and we enjoyed getting some of our Christmas shopping done and we even got to visit with Santa and see some of the reindeer.  Those reindeer have some strange looking feet.

  

July 15  We always like to go to the Visitor Centers when get to a new city so that’s what we did today.  I must say Fairbanks has one of the nicest visitors centers.  They have a huge exhibit, several different videos that you can watch and a movie theater.  They also have craft classes.  Today they had jewelry making classes, so I enrolled in the earring class with these cute Indian girls.  My earring is made from caribou hide, porcupine needles and beads.  It was a lot of fun.  We watched a movie about the Northern Lights in the theater.  It was okay but since I was in Fairbanks for a work trip in February 2002 I got to see the Northern Lights up close and personal so the movie was just so so for me.  I got in a tail end of a tour group given by an Indian lady whose family clothes were on display and she explained what the different pieces of clothing were used for.  It was very interesting.  One of the saddest things I learned on this whole trip at most of the visitors centers is that the government rounded up the Indian children and sent them away from their families to go school so they could learn English and the white man’s way of life and that schooling caused many of the Indians to loose their craftsmanship and culture.  Now that same government that spent all that money destroying their way of life is now spending more money trying to teach these young Indian men and women what they took away from them in the first place.  We actually met a lady who was one of those children that was taken away from her family and sent to school.  She told me she still struggles with anger and many of her community members do to.  While she was telling me her story I felt like apologizes for the government.  It was so sad.  On the brighter side we ate lunch at the Cookie Jar.  The waiter we had was named Justin and he was from Clarksburg, WV (Jim’s hometown).  He was a really great waiter and we had a good time chatting with him.  Jim thought he knew his family back in WV.  Small world.

 

July 16  Today we took the Discovery Riverboat ride down the Chena River.  Jim and I did this ride 10 years ago and we still enjoyed it just as much this time.  Before we got on the riverboat, we had our picture taken in a room that was -40 degrees.  Fairbanks is known for its -40 degree winters so this was a  pretty cool thing to experience.  We only stayed in the room for one minute but that was plenty of time to get the drift that it was pretty darn cold.  The boat ride starts off with a float plane demo taking off and landing on the river for us.  And the whole time it is going on the captain on the boat is communicating with the  pilot.  It was pretty cool.  On the boat ride we got to stop by the late Susan Butcher’s famous Iditarod Sled Dog Training Facility which is now run by her husband, Dave and two daughters. Her husband and some of the trainers came out and did some demonstrations for us.  Then Dave hooked the dogs up to an ATV and the dogs took off around the property.  It was pretty cool to watch.  Then we went by an Indian village and a young girl show us how to clean a salmon and how they hang the fish to dry.  She made it look very easy.  Then we went by a reindeer field and the captain explained how the reindeer shed their antlers every year which I did not know.   Then we got let off at the Indian Village and got to visit various speakers to learn about the various traditions.  It was very informative.   After the boat ride we rode out to the Dredge #8 Gold Panning Tour.  Jim and I had done this on our last trip here but it was called the El Dorado.  They since sold out to this company.  It was a little easier to pan for gold here.  After getting the history of the old Dredge #8, they take you over to this building, hand you a poke of pay dirt and a gold pan and you walk over to a table with warm running water and pan for your gold.   This was the first time I actually got down to my gold with getting help.  It was pretty exciting when I finally saw the gold specks show up after swishing and swishing the dirt and water.  Jim and I combined our gold and I had my gold from previous gold panning and I took it in and had it weighed and the guy that weighed it said I  had the most gold he weighed all day.  $60 worth.  WooHoo!  Now that I finally got the hang of this, I can’t wait to gold pan again!

July 17  Today we went to Chena Hot Springs and the Chena Ice Museum.  The Ice Museum was awesome.  It had the most beautiful ice carvings done by ice carving sculpture champions.  It was so unique. The building is kept at 25 degrees and they let you chose a down parka to wear while in there and let me tell you it is very well worth it to wear it; it kept us very warm.  The building has chandeliers that had led lights imbedded that changed colors.  It had a full bar that had stools made of ice with caribou pads for your comfort to sit on.  Appletinis were served in ice martini glasses.  There was an igloo that you could crawl in that had a xylophone made of ice that actually played.  Two rooms were actually hotel rooms complete with ice carved beds that you could really rent for the night and a chapel where they actually held weddings.  After the Ice Museum, we had a really nice lunch in the Inn and then we went over to the Hot Springs.  What a way to end the day.  The hot springs felt wonderful and they were HOT.