DAY 283 Wednesday 18th JUNE 2008

Fairbanks, Alaska (Miles to Date: 29000

For our second night in Fairbanks Mark had arranged for us to stay at the Aurora Express Bed & Breakfast (www.fairbanksalaskabedandbreakfast.com/trains.html). The accommodation here is made up of old train carriages from the Alaskan Railway system. Four blue and yellow carriages were owned by the National Park Service but they didn’t have the funds to do anything with them. Two were sent to a transportation museum and two were bought by Mike and Sue Wilson of Fairbanks, who got a real bargain when they bought the two old style Alaska Railroad cars for only $1 each - if you don't count the transportation bill. It cost them more than $20,000 to move the two railroad cars to Fairbanks, where they already owned a caboose. Mike and Sue have carefully restored the carriages, a number of which have been themed and named to suit their characters; such as the “Immaculate Conception” and the “Bordello”. Our carriage, the “National Emblem”, a 1956 Pullman private sleeper car was significantly more sedate. We had possession of the whole 85 feet of carriage, including 4 private sleeping compartments. The original features of the Pullman car had been kept pretty much intact, which we thought was more interesting than sleeping in a bordello!!! The other fantastic thing about the Aurora Express B&B is the breakfasts which are served up canteen style at 8:00am on the dot in the dedicated dining car. The food was hot and very, very tasty.

Today our first port of call was the impressive looking Museum of the North, based at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The museum is housed in a wonderfully modern edifice on a hill overlooking the City of Fairbanks. The main exhibition area is the Gallery of Alaska, which is divided into five regional galleries representing the major ecological regions of Alaska. Each gallery highlights the distinct natural and cultural history of these regions. The displays gave a wonderful insight in to the history of the Alaskan territory – both good and bad (including a moving tale of the forced evacuation and internment of Aleut Americans during World War II). In addition to the human stories of Alaska there were exhibits covering the ecology of this vast and diverse State. One of our favourite galleries contained many pieces of Native Alaskan art, both historical and present as well as exhibits of art work from local artists, including a highly ornate outhouse. Outhouses are still common place in the Alaska as the frigid temperatures and the hard, permafrost ground make plumbing a challenge. In fact outhouses are revered and often decorated, there is even a book celebrating the Alaskan outhouse and an annual outhouse race held through the streets of Anchorage. Something about the cold temperatures and constant winter darkness does affect the mind!!

After a morning of cultural overload we decided that we needed to follow this with a simpler form of entertainment. Our next stop was only a short drive away – the aptly named Large Animal Research Station. The main reason for coming here was to see muskoxen. These delightful creatures are more closely related to sheep and goats than to oxen, but are in their own genus, Ovibos. The muskox we found to be a lot smaller than we had expected, even with the thick coats that protect them from the harsh winter weather. Muskox wool, or qiviut (an Inuit word), is highly prized for its softness, length, and insulative value. The Alaskan muskox story is a little-known conservation success, with the muskox reclaiming some of the ranges it inhabited over a century ago. Muskoxen disappeared from their last remaining strongholds in northern Alaska during the late 1800's. Hunting by humans contributed to their decline. In 1930, the U.S. Congress provided funds to ship 34 muskoxen from Greenland to Alaska. From the first herd established on Nunivak Island, 71 animals were transplanted to the Seward Peninsula, during 1970 and 1981. So far, people have not hunted the reintroduced muskoxen, allowing them to increase at a rate of 15-20% annually. In April of 1992 the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service jointly conducted an aerial survey and found 706 muskox on the Seward Peninsula. Our visit coincided with the end of the breeding season and we were very lucky to see some of the calves born in the spring

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As well as muskox the Research Station also studies caribou. These large, sub-arctic dwelling deer are still numerous in the interior and north of Alaska. One of the great sights of the animal kingdom is the vast migration herds, numbering 150,000 to 200,000 caribou, that follow a 400 mile route along Alaska’s Porcupine river every year from their winter feeding grounds in the south to the north Alaskan coastal plain where they calve. Along the migration route the caribou pass through the tundra of the Alaskan interior, where we heard they are molested by swarms of bugs, including mosquitoes and warble flies. The mosquitoes are simply after their blood, but the numbers of these insects are so high the poor caribou can loose pints of blood in a single day. More horrific are the warble flies, which lay their eggs in the skin of the caribou. The larvae hatch and eat their way out of the skin before the metamorphosis process into adulthood, causing a great amount of irritation to the animal. In some case the warble flies lay their eggs inside the nasal cavity – this can cause a great deal of distress (not surprisingly) to the caribou.

The day continues to go down hill culturally speaking as we round it off with a trip to the town of North Pole, Alaska, where the locals claim the “Spirit of Christmas lives year around”. If you hadn’t read this before visiting then the candy cane shaped lamp posts would have probably given the game away. The town itself is pretty much non-descript but our reason for the visit was to visit Santa Claus’ House. This is the place where you can get letters posted from Santa Claus, post-marked North Pole – cool eh! Sadly Santa Claus’ House is a store rather than a house (but there are reindeer parked out back) but sure enough Santa and Mrs Claus are faithfully on duty for photo-opportunities and to make mobile phone calls back to little Johnny down in Tampa Bay, Florida. After some coercion we did manage to get a reluctant Jack and Emily to pose with Santa whilst we did a video message for Laura back in England. Luckily as we’re travelling light we did not have the opportunity to spend money on seasonal tchatchke.