This last day of the trip, while interesting and informative (and also fun) was probably my least favorite. We had 2 scheduled events: a tour of the El Dorado Gold Mine, with a “Miner’s Lunch” and a riverboat cruise. But it was kind of a herd mentality—50 people on the bus to the mine, off the bus and onto the mining train, back onto the bus to go to the lunch, etc. The mining tour was actually pretty interesting—they took us underground to see the stratified rock and where they look for gold in the layers. Then we went to a dredge that actually worked until 1960, and explained the mining process, and we got to pan our own gold. I’m sure we never would have paid for that, but it was kind of fun, and we have a total of $18 worth of gold flakes to show for it. (Our flakes were the tiny ones in the pan--together they were worth about $18. One of the women in our group actually found a nugget!
The miner’s lunch was pretty tasty—a hearty beef stew and biscuits, and then we left for the riverboat. I think the entire tourism industry of Fairbanks is owned by the same family—they owned the mine, as well as the riverboats (2 of them, one holding 600 passengers and the other 900). Despite the large number of people, we had a nice seat on top, and the day was absolutely gorgeous, so the riverboat trip was great. There are some incredible homes along the river ( the upper, upper class of Fairbanks), many of them with seaplanes in their driveways!) One had been hired by the boat company to do a demo take-off and landing for us, and Yoram loved that. Amazing how quickly they can take off and land!
We went past more homes, including one where Reagan and Nancy stayed when they were in Alaska and one built out of logs the way the pioneers built them. We stopped across from the home of Susan Butcher, 4 time Iditerod champion (she dies of cancer at age 51 a few years ago); her husband still lives there and has his kennels on the bank of the river. He also spoke to us (he and the pilot of the seaplane were wired with microphones so they could talk to us on the boat) and showed is the dogs—these much smaller and faster, and also did a sled run demo which we could see from the boat.
Finally we stopped at the model of an Athabascan Village, where we were guided by native Athabascans/Eskimos through the village and got to see the pelts they hunt (grizzly, fox, caribou, moose) how they smoke the fish, their dwellings (both then and now) the native clothing made from the pelts, snowshoes, and other equipment. It was pretty fascinating, though it did have a bit of a contrived, artificial feel to it.
Last night we wandered a little along the Fairbanks riverwalk, but the city is pretty dead, and we didn’t spend long outside. We did visit the Land Lease Memorial. On the side was a replica of a cover from a Life magazine issue describing the Land Lease Agreement in WWII. Check out the 1940's version of Roni on the cover! I guess that American female pilots weren't permitted to fly combat missions in WWII, so they ferried many of the planes that the US leased to the Russians over to Russia, and there the Russian pilots took over.
We packed and got ready for the 5:00 AM wake-up to get to the plane on time for an 8:00 flight. In the Fairbanks Airport, Alaska gave us one more little taste of its glorious splendor--the most amazing sunrise, and 1 final glimpse of Denali!
All in all, the trip was everything we could have asked for, and more. The weather was fabulous just about the entire time, which enabled us to do and experience so many of the things we couldn’t have done and experienced had it not cooperated; the hikes to places of exquisite beauty, the sights both at sea (glaciers, mountains, the channels themselves) and on land, especially the foliage and the beauty of Denali, and all the other physical activity that made the trip so amazing. The luxury of the cruise was such a rare treat for us, and the fact that we could get off the ship and do our own thing was great. The food was far too good, everything was super well-organized, and I can’t imagine having a better experience in Alaska than we did.
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