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.