Our CruiseTour got off to a great start today. Our first stop was the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The bowhead whale skeleton gets your attention right away!

Diane and I went to the second floor to see the all-Alaskan art collection on the second floor. There were pieces by Alaskan artists (both Native and Western), as well as pieces by non-Alaskans of Alaskan subjects. Some of my favorites:

All American Picassoan Inupiaq Shaman Hero (1991) by Joseph T. Senungetuk

Bering Strait Faces the Last Roundup in the Last Frontier (1982) by Dan DeRoux

The Great Alaska Outhouse Experience was an interesting piece that you could actually touch and go into; it’s decorated with all sorts of interesting artifacts.

The first floor is devoted to the natural, cultural, and political history of Alaska. Bears are prominent:

There was a large area that talked about the expulsion and relocation of the Japanese and Aleut population during World War II. I knew about the Japanese relocation, but this was the first time I learned that the Aleuts were also relocated – not so much about trumped-up concerns about their loyalty as much as about “protecting” them from a Japanese invasion (the only part of North America that was occupied (briefly) by the Japanese were Alaskan islands).

There was a lot of space given over to the megafauna of Alaska, past and present.

The Gold Rush brought many Western settlers to Alaska, along with their firearms.

Native culture got a lot of attention, of course.

I had just a minute to get a photo of a tiny Northern Bluebell using their scanning microscope.

We left the Museum to go to downtown Fairbanks for lunch; our guide talked about the problems of living with extreme cold (for example, tires lose their roundness in temperatures below -50F!). Downtown Fairbanks is served by central steam heat and there are vent pipes all over the area, painted by local artists, such as this painting of Marilyn Monroe.

After lunch, we drove to the Riverboat Discovery Landing for a journey up the Chena River on the Discovery III. It was a wonderful afternoon, far more interesting than I’d expected.

We visited the “40 below” room before boarding the ship for a photo op – it was cold, even if it wasn’t quite as cold as advertised.

There was a Piper Super Cub on the river near our departure, and by a strange coincidence, not obny did the pilot have to wait for clearance to take off until we were nearby, but he was equipped to talk to the ship over our PA system. He taxiied down river so we could get a good view, then went back upriver and took off right next to us.

We weren’t alone on the river.

Our next stop was just offshore of the Trail Breaker Kennel, where they showed us how they train sled dogs, even in the summer.

We saw a herd of caribou.

We sailed to the end of the Chena river where it meets the Tanana. The Tanana is glacial and somewhat milky and you can see the boundary – the captain said it made for interesting sailing sometimes.

Our final stop was at “Chena Village”, which was a reconstructed Athabascan village. We saw demonstrations of various aspects of Athabascan life (mostly before Westerners came to stay), including fishing, textiles, crafting, and more. There was even a stuffed moose.

And then it was back to the hotel for dinner and packing – we leave for Denali early tomorrow morning.

Our official Cruisetour doesn’t start until tomorrow, so we had nothing planned for us today. Instead of wandering aimlessly around Fairbanks, we decided to do the Historic/Scenic Volksmarch and wander around aimfully.

We got off to a slow start, having a leisurely breakfast and talking with other people on the tour, including our friends once they got to the restaurant. But eventually, we were ready to roll!

We registered and set out on the 10k walk; we had to cross the Chena River almost immediately.

We probably shouldn’t have followed the directions exactly – the bridge we walked across was under construction and the sidewalk was closed, but we persisted. A worker saw us just before we got to the end of the bridge and told us we were in the wrong place, but let us finish crossing.

The next stop on the walk was the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, the first Catholic church in Alaska. We were invited to go in and take a look – it wasn’t quite as ornate as the churches we’d just seen in Portugal and Spain, but it was still impressive.

We left the church and walked past Doyon, Limited headquarters; Doyon is the regional Alaska Native corporation for Interior Alaska. Even their parking lot is sensitive to the special features of Alaska, like moose.

The walk took us back across the Chena to Golden Heart Plaza, which has a clock tower, plaques commemorating Alaska history and families, and the statue of the “Unknown First Family”.

And there were flowers.

We left downtown on the 1st Street Bike Path and walked a couple of miles to Pioneer Park. Along the way, we passed more churches, like the St. Mathews Episcopal Church, which was originally built in 1905, burned down in 1947, and was rebuilt in the same pattern.

We also passed a power and steam heat plant, a water treatment plant, a hockey rink, none of which were particularly photogenic.

Pioneer Park was built for the Alaska Centennial Exposition in 1967 and is loaded with museums, shops, restaurants, and flowers. We had lunch at Souvlaki (recommended), visited the first checkpoint for the walk, and enjoyed the scenery.

We even found a memorial totem pole.

The return trip to town took us through a mostly-residential area with lots of historic houses. We walked past a wild park (sorry, it’s a “Natural Area”) and enjoyed the sculpture at Denali Elementary School.

Once we were downtown, the walk took us past Fairbanks’ first skyscraper, the Northward Building, built in 1952 to alleviate the housing shortage. It was the first apartment building in town.

The second checkpoint of the walk was in the Clay Street Cemetery; we were getting tired (and the smoke was getting to us), so we didn’t stop for photos – instead, we went onward to the modern Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center, which featured air conditioning, bathrooms, water, and wi-fi!

After we left the Visitor Center, the walk took us to a different part of Golden Heart Plaza, where we found a monument to a very different era.

I saw a gleaming sculpture in the distance and we went over to it – it’s called Polaris and commemorates ice, quartz, and the Aurora Borealis.

Unfortunately, that’s not what the sky really looked like – the smoke was thickening and the AQI was well into the unhealthy range, so the sky was an ugly gray.

We finished the walk at Milepost 1523, the official end of the Alaska Highway.

There’s lots more of Fairbanks to see, but this was a good way to get the flavor of the place. Several people stopped us along the way to chat and suggest places we’d enjoy visiting – it was almost eerie!