Reached the top; headed to Denali NP

July 8 - 9 Days 30 - 31

On the evening of July 7th, we attended a live musical play that told the story of how Fairbanks came to be in a very entertaining and humorous way.  Then on the morning of the 8th, we rode our bikes out to Ft. Wainwright, the army base here in Fairbanks, then followed the bike path to the west end of the city, before returning to the visitor center.  Total ride was ~15 miles.  Later, I got some fresh, wild caught Alaskan salmon and grilled it for dinner.  It was excellent! 

Being a larger town of ~34k people, Fairbanks has some trouble with public intoxication, particularly with the natives.  As you can imagine, that comes with a whole other set of problems.


Now that we are as far north as we are going, we left Fairbanks this morning, the 9th, to head south towards Denali NP.  The drive was beautiful with the Alaskan Range of mountains on one side of the road and the Minto Flats on the other.  The Minto Flats, in my opinion, is a marketing spin for describing mostly bogs, small lakes, and creeks.  None the less, the view was great!

As we continued on, we came to the small village of Nenana, where they hold the, Nenana Ice Classic.  It is an annual event that awards cash prizes to the lucky winners who guess the exact minute of the ice breakup on the Tanana (pronounced TAN-a-naw) River.  The contest has been a spring highlight since 1917. The tickets are sold from February 1st until April 5th. The way they know the exact time is they build a log tripod like the one shown here:

then they slide it out on the ice, attach a wire to top of the tripod on one end and to a clock located in a tower atop the Ice Classic office, thus recording the exact minute of the ice breakup.  The town also had a depot for the Alaska Railroad that is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

I asked the lady if a person could catch a passenger train there and she told me you can, but you have to call to Anchorage and tell them you want to get on (or off) the train at Nenana, so they could radio the train and tell them to stop.  The visitor center is very typical of an older Alaskan building, with the sod roof and hanging flower baskets shown in the picture below.

We continued south of Nenana to stay for a couple of nights at the Tatlanika (means river with large rocks in the First Nation language) Trading Company before going on down to Denali.

OBSERVATIONS (and other unscientific data):

1. I think nearly everyone reading this blog knows me well enough to know that I can talk to total strangers pretty easily.  That said, we talked with an Athabaskan, one tribe of native Alaska, woman, Sylvia Pitka, who told us she and the rest of the 350 native people in her village live a subsistant lifestyle. Which means they must hunt, trap, and fish for their food.  They trap fur bearing animals so they can sell their fur.  They grow magnificent gardens so they can freeze or can their harvest.  They cut wood to heat their homes all winter, a very long winter, as well as on which to cook.  She was a very young woman, about my age.  Now I completely understand that, I get it, but this woman told us she absolutely loved this lifestyle and she and her husband taught their four children the subsistant way of life.  She knows the avenues for an easier lifestyle, but wants nothing to do with it.  I have to say, I admire her commitment.  Go Sylvia!!
2. There were a number of motorcyclists riding the Alaska Highway, which I thought could be quite brutal.  So I noted the brands of motorcycles to see who was the winner.  Out of ten motorcycles:

• 5 were 'naked' BMW's - a naked BMW has the frame exposed with no finished panels
• 3 were Honda Goldwings
• the last 2 were split between Harley Davidson and KTM

BLOG CONTEST :
Since we are as far north as we are going, I developed a contest for the blog readers who wish to participate.  Simply guess the total number of miles we have driven up until midnight last night, July 8th.  Email me your guess; the person who is the closest without going over is the winner.  Or, if all players are over, the one closest wins!
Oh, what do you win?  Well don't expect too much.  I will meet the winner for lunch sometime in September, October, or November.  Ok, so the prize isn't all that great, but at least it will be fun!  Send me an email with your guess!