At the Princess Hotel in Fairbanks, we ate on this deck quite often on the Chena River during our two day stay in this town.
an old river dredge barge from the (?)1880's
Our first (of many) demonstrations as to how to pan for gold... are we paying attention.. I think not
as we pull in on the train to the panning area there is "dregdge bucket" filled with our "whatevery it was called" bag of stuff to pan the gold out of..
the white bag is our "stuff" (there was an official name for it) and the photo film container for your nuggets has you hopeful,
What you start with and just add water and swirl and swirl and then lean it forward to drain water and the sediment off... but really your timid to lean it to far forward as your GOLD might escape.. but theres really no chance of that.. Gold is heavier than the dirt and will sink to the bottom.. but still your not so sure of that.. so you have them demonstrate it and keep going..
Our group all getting started at the search for gold.
Hey I have gold nuggets... $9.00 worth..
So they don't buy it back from you, but they will put it into jewelry, so several of the kids pool their booty and gave it to mom who had a necklace and earrings made with the nuggets in them...
an old style way of dredging gold for a individual who had his hopes in striking it rich.
our second excursion of the day was a trip down the Chena River on the Discovery III paddle boat.
You can pick out our crowd on the deck (Greg & Kimm) and behind the railing the others
Greg explaining how a paddle boat works
the announcer knows the seaplane pilot and so he did a take off and landing demonstration on the narrow river with the paddle boat giving him some space to land.. they broadcast the interaction between the announcer and pilot who talked "to us"
oops, out of order the next few are the Alaskan pipeline that was right next to the train depot and we walked under it to get from the parking lot to the train..
okay, back to the seaplane landing on the Chena River
this cabin is an old cabin that the long post are their "ice" box in the winter where they hung meat because Fairbanks can get to minus -40-60 degrees in the winter.
For the farm folks, figured they would like this GREEN tractor for decor
The Iditarod racer Susan Butcher aged 54 who passed away 6 yrs ago from cancer, this is her training facility for 50 dogs that her husband Dave Monson and two daughters operate. Her husband Dave is standing along the shoreline speaking to the boat on the speakers.
They train the dogs with an engineless quad and the dogs are about as hyperactive and energy filled all day long. I have film of alot of things on our trip and this was interesting to watch them pull the "sled" around the training camp and around the lake behind them and then back to where they are presently.
the boat stopped at the Chena Village of the Athabascan people. The next bunch of pictures are the demo village setup of how they might have lived in summer or winter in the distant past.
domesticated Caribou are called "reindeer", these are domesticated
aw how cute
he is demonstrating how they slice and preserve there less than ideal fish catches for "dog food", you can see it hanging on the racks to the left (I didn't center it very well)
one of the reindeer with a hot and heavy libido I might add, who is rutting his felt off of his antlers.. He demonstrated his prowess while she was talking.. hilarious her reaction
she talked about the curing of the hides and what they would use each of the furs for as nothing is put to waste. coyote, wolf, mink, raccoon, beaver
an authentic mushers sled
Greg with the coyote
a typical hut inside and out, with the grass to cool and heat the roof, and the antlers on the peak.
A stuffed moose, (yay we finally saw wildlife) up close..... This beast is massive in size when you stand up next to it
she is modeling a coat made from the hides of the animals, a little bit of several kinds of animals depending on the location on the coat for dryness and warmth.
Moose
Bear
Caribou
Now that is a rack! Who you looking at?
musher dogs aren't as big as you expect them to be when you see them up close but they are absolutely full of energy... unless your this one then your a poser..
view from the side deck of the river ahead of us. as we sat docked waiting for those to board.
just a beautiful house that had it's own little entry canal cut into the side of the river to lead up to a mansion of a home and landscaped yard.
anyone interested... beautiful spot if you like warm and cold temps
The next day we took a shuttle bus to the visitors center, the next few pictures are outside of the center of the house, flowers, outhouse or hot box as the Van Meeteren river bunch would call it...
and so the vacation comes to an end and mom needs a nap and her feet up.. We checked out of the hotel at 11 am and then wandered the town to be busy. We were waiting at the hotel like homeless people for the shuttle to the airport for our red eye flights when I caught her napping...
Now I'm going to finish with our airplane trip photos in the next blog... beautiful~!
