After another scenic train trip, we arrived at our final and most Northern destination, Fairbanks. It is about 100 miles south of the Artic Circle, and known as the best place on Earth to view the Aurora Borealis. They can see the Northern Lights 240 nights a year. Hotels there give guests wake up calls when the Aurora is going good. Our two nights in Fairbanks had no such calls. So we've saved something for the next time.
There was a whole set of Fairbanks activities included in our travel package. We took a paddleboat trip up the Chena River aboard an authentic sternwheeler. We stopped by Susan Butcher's place, were she talked about the three times she's won the Iditarod dogsled race, and told amusing dog stories. A protégé of hers demonstrated dog sledding, and we got to spend some time with the sled dogs. We visited Chena Village, a realistic Indian camp where natives discussed their traditional way of life, showed us how to prepare and smoke salmon, bead work, native furs, types of shelters, etc. Also, we saw a bush pilot demo taking off and landing in tight quarters.
No trip to Alaska is complete without visiting the 800-mile-long trans-Alaska Pipeline. I noticed how corroded it is, how the rubber gaskets have deteriorated, and how some pipe sections appear to be slid out of place. The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company gave us some nice propaganda, and our tour guide told us how much he was impressed during his recent visit to the oil tankers at the Port of Valdez.
Some very odd people run a tourist trap called the "El Dorado Gold Mine". They have the largest sluice box in Alaska, where they dump a backhoe full of dirt. Then open a floodgate to wash it across a 50 foot grooved trough. The whole time they're being completely dramatic, trying to get the crowd fired up about gold. Like we've got to catch the favor. It was a revival meeting preaching gold. Some dudes demo panning some of that sluiced dirt, pulling out large nuggets (not even a good job of palming). Then each of us gets a little bag of dirt called a “poke”, supposedly concentrated with gold, and we try our hand at panning. The place looked like a bingo parlor, but with several hundred old people panning gold. There was lots of shaken going on. Sure enough, each bag did have gold, which we got to keep in a supplied container. And I saw people find some pretty good nuggets. They said we could go inside and have our pay dirt weighed. We didn't bother, but we did eat several rounds of complementary cookies, and held their billiard ball sized nugget.
We flew home from Fairbanks. Ralph got back to Nebraska, only hours before the 9-11 Attacks. We were fortunate to have traveled during happier times. Many of the British, Australian, and others tourists from around the World whom we had met and spent time with probably couldn't get home for days.