Before setting off on the next stage of our tour we decided to pay one more visitor to the Visitors Centre in Denali NP. We wanted to attend a talk on the geology and rock structures of Denali, given by one of the volunteers staying in the park campground. It turns out that parts of Alaska were once connected to other parts of the United Statesas far away as the Dakotas. There are some who think that one day California will break off and collide with Alaska –now that will have a big impact on that Californian real estate!!. Our minds geologically saturated we depart a damp and dreary Denali and continue our journey north towards Fairbanks. As we leave the high peaks of the Alaska range and move deeper into the Interior the mountains are replaced by rolling hills. Fairbanks is the largest city in Alaska’s interior and the 2nd largest in the State after Anchorage, and was originally founded in 1901 as a trading centre. In 1902 gold was discovered in the area which resulted in an explosion in the population. Today Fairbanks has evolved from a gold rush town into a modern city – albeit somewhat sleepy.
Our first night in Fairbanks was spent in the Townsite Gardens B & B close to downtown. The owner Kazumi and her daughter, who Emily befriended, made us most welcome and the family suite was very comfortable.
Today we decided to explore Fairbanks a bit more. Our first stop of the day was the FairbanksIceMuseum, which is somewhat homespun but great fun. We are treated to a demonstration of ice carving using a combination of hand and electrical tools. After an amazingly short time the artist produces an ice fish statue. This museum used to be a cinema and they have retained the seating, but around the sides and the front of the theatre they have built glass panelled rooms. In these rooms, which are refrigerated, are the most fantastic ice sculptures of walruses, bears, Inuit Eskimos, musical instruments and many other creations. Going into these rooms was marvellous but rather chilly. The finale of our visit is a film about the World Ice Art Championships (http://www.icealaska.com/index.html) which take place in Fairbanks every March. Teams of carvers from all around the world brave the cold March weather and using local ice hewn from frozen lakes (Fairbanks apparently has the best quality ice in the world) to create wonderful creations, some reaching two storeys high.
After experiencing the IceMuseum we headed north out of Fairbanks towards the artic circle to the El Dorado Gold Mine. We hop aboard a narrow-gauge train to start our two-hour tour of the Gold Mine to learn all about how 100,000 gold rushers fought the permafrost in their quest to get rich.
The tour begins as you board the train and travel to a historic, working gold mine that looks as it would have when gold fever first swept across America. Our conductor Earl Hughes plays songs from days gone by and spins yarns about early Alaska as we travel below ground to a permafrost tunnel and meet a gold miner. Further on we pass by several exhibits of prospector’s cabins and mining equipment.
Our final stop is a working gold camp where the real fun begins. We meet local miners Dexter and Yukon Yonda have been operating small mines for more than 25 years, who teach us all about modern mining techniques. We then get to try our hand at gold panning, with success guaranteed. It is a short walk to the gift shop where we get our samples weighed. We decided to collect together our hard worked for gold dust and put into a necklace charm to give the Jack and Emily’s grandmother as a gift.The best thing about the end of this tour is the complimentary coffee and fresh-baked cookies.
Our day is not yet done and we head back to Fairbanks where we stopped at PioneerPark. Here a number of historic buildings have been relocated from all around Fairbanks and the surrounds, and set out in a series of quaint streets which are now set aside as shops. There is even a paddle steamer which is a dry docked museum. Our main reason for stopping here was to visit an attraction called 40 Below. The significance of 40 below (which is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales converge) is that this is the chilly temperature reached in central Alaska in the winter time. The exhibit is quite modest basically a shack with a large freezer unit at the rear. They provided us with warm parka jackets and gloves, a jug of hot water and set us off into the freezer. The first thing we do is throw the hot water into the air where it explosively evaporates is a fraction of a second, saving us from a scalding. The thermometer in the room reads -40 degrees, but there is heat exchanger fan blowing cold air in so with the wind chill it is probably much colder. The room is sparsely decorated with only a large thrown like chair and table carved out of ice, in which is a banana some nails and a block of wood. The banana is frozen, so much so you can take it and use it to knock nails into the wood. Even with the warm clothes provided it is too cold to hang around so we take some pictures and head out into the balmy 60 degree weather outside. At $5 per person to get in it is a little pricey but well worth it to get a feel of the Alaskan interior’s winter.
Hello we are the Hoblets, an almost sane family of five Brits; Mark, Karen, Laura (19 years), Jack (10 years) and Emily (8 years). . The Hoblets have been living in the USA since 2003, four and half years in New York and two years in Ashland, Oregon. Laura now lives in Eastbourne in the UK. In 2007 we did a years tour of the USA, Canada and some of Latin America, before settling in Oregon. In June 2010 we decided to go travelling again, initially across the USA and then onto Europe.
The blog is intended to keep people in touch with where we are and what we are up to.
We are open to any ideas of places to visit - please let us know.
Today we decided to explore 
time. The exhibit is quite modest basically a shack with a large freezer unit at the rear. They provided us with warm parka jackets and gloves, a jug of hot water and set us off into the freezer. The first thing we do is throw the hot water into the air where it explosively evaporates is a fraction of a second, saving us from a scalding. The thermometer in the room reads -40 degrees, but there is heat exchanger fan blowing cold air in so with the wind chill it is probably much colder. The room is sparsely decorated with only a large thrown like chair and table carved out of ice, in which is a banana some nails and a block of wood. The banana is frozen, so much so you can take it and use it to knock nails into the wood. Even with the warm clothes provided it is too cold to hang around so we take some pictures and head out into the balmy 60 degree weather outside. At $5 per person to get in it is a little pricey but well worth it to get a feel of the Alaskan interior’s winter.
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