Month: July 2019

Wednesday 31 July

We left the visitors centre at 7.15 and had the best driver, who wasn’t really meant to be a tour guide but was!  The park bus system is a hop on and hop off but our bus driver was so good we decided to stay with her the whole day.

Drove past the entry and exit of the Savage Alpine hike we did the day before. Looking back at the end of our hike, we were glad we did it the way we did, as looking up at our decent, it appeared much steeper than we felt it was coming down.

The bus seats were a great deal more comfortable than we remember, but the road was much the same, fairly rough and narrow in places. Toilet breaks every hour and a half or so, time seemed to go fairly quickly with plenty to see, and always scanning for wildlife. Managed to see the ‘top 4’, Moose, Bear, Caribou, and Dall Sheep before mile 35 which was by all accounts, very good. God continued to bless us with great weather, with clouds clearing from Mt McKinley/Denali during the trip, and although a bit hazy, we got a number of unobstructed views of the mountain on our way out. We would discover later, after meeting a couple that was due to make the trip the following day, that their forecast was for rain, a forecast that indeed turned out to be accurate.

We stopped at Eielson Visitors Centre for a longer stop and had our lunch and shared it with a talkative Ground Squirrel.  

In parts (through Polychrome Pass) single lane, buses going both ways, with huge drop-offs into the valley below with no barriers. In one spot the road had slumped significantly requiring considerable repairs and reconstruction. The driver told us that there were some early level discussions/investigations around a probable alternative route, bypassing the current road altogether. Some options may require the park road to be temporarily closed while alternatives were built, which would significantly reduce access to an incredibly beautiful area. 

We then got to Wonder Lake which was beautiful and looked like a lake in the South Island of NZ. This is where Chris and Ross camped overnight in 1996 and the mosquitoes were so bad it sounded like it was raining on the tent but it was just the mosquitoes.  Due to the high temperatures and fires, there have been minimal mosquitoes this year. Often mosquitoes are referred to Alaska’s State Bird.

Total Wildlife seen in Denali: 7 moose, 14 caribou, 7 dall sheep (including lambs), 11 bears, 1 fox, Squirrels (Bear Burrito!)

Got back to the Grizzly Bear Campground, had Thai and Mexican from food trucks at the campground and had some much needed and enjoyable showers. Chris and Tayla did some washing while sitting in the Laundry charging devices and working on the blog and business.

   

Tuesday 30 July

We slept late and woke to a car coming into the Church car park so we got up and headed to Denali.   On our way to Denali, we stopped to see the bus that was used in the movie “Into the Wild”. It is a movie based Chris McCandles who hiked the Stampede Trail just out of Healy, but got stranded due to the fluctuating levels of the Teklanika River and being unable to cross, the book and movie tells of his quest for survival living in the abandoned Fairbanks bus he termed “The Magic Bus” for 4 months, giving insight into his journals and photography.  People are intrigued by his story and many tramp (or do tours) out to the abandoned Fair a still tramp out to the bus today, many repeating his mistakes. A couple spent two nights at the bus last week, and the rising river level made the river crossing challenging and a 24 year old woman died on Thursday returning from the bus. The bus we saw was in Healy and what was used in the movie.  

We then drove to Denali and saw a moose and caribou on the way.  We went to the Denali Visitors Centre and decided on the Savage Alpine Trail which was described as ‘strenuous’.  We drove to the trailhead and then walked the trail which had lots of variety and was beautiful. It was 6.4kms with an elevation of 1500 ft and we did in 3 hours stopping to eat our marmite and chippie buns and nectarine (pretty regular lunch for us).  

We went and stayed at Grizzly Denali Campground (Mum and Dad stayed there in 1996) where we enjoyed a hot shower!   We had left over steak, potatoes and salad for dinner.

 

Monday 29 July

We said our goodbyes to Deb and Darrell and then visited the University of Fairbanks Museum which was in an awesome uniquely designed building.  There were some interesting exhibits on wildlife and the Gold Rush Klondike days. There was a contemplative outhouse that Tayla and Chris sat in, obviously contemplatively until Chris got a fright as Ross was peering through the door!  

Chris was set on finding the campground that they stayed at for 3 days in 1996 and caught Salmon.   We did find it on the Chena River and found the site they camped and took a photo. On the way to the campground we visited “The Alaska Raw Fur Company” where they sold animal hides.  Tayla tried on a coat that cost US$3500.  

We visited the University of Fairbanks Museum which was in an awesome uniquely designed building.  There were some interesting exhibits on wildlife and the Gold Rush Klondike days. There was a contemplative outhouse that Tayla and Chris sat in, obviously contemplatively until Chris got a fright as Ross was peering through the door!  

We had lunch at Pioneer Park in amongst the trees which was lovely and then went on a guided tour around Pioneer Park on the Crooked Creek and Whiskey Island Railroad.

We began our drive from Fairbanks to Denali, and saw a cow (moose) and two calves on the way!   We arrived late into Denali and didn’t want to pay the standard $50-$60 to park the camper and use the bathrooms so we got some hot chips from Denali and then parked in a pull out with others to cook some steak and prepare our salad.  While cooking we realised how loud the trucks were as we were so close to the road. As soon as we ate dinner we drove to find a quieter place to camp. We went back to Healy where we found toilets at the ‘weed shop’ and then went and parked in a church car park for the night.

Sunday 28 July

We went to The Landing church with Darrell and Deb Bourne and really loved it.   Love their heart for working with people who struggle with substance abuse. We went shopping at Walmart which has a Subway on site where we could sit and use the Free WIFI to do business and our blog so had lunch and sat for a couple of hours and went shopping.   The Bourne’s invited us back for the evening for dinner and loved the Moose Chilli and Corn Bread we had for dinner and we stayed there the night. We had strudel pastries and Bennett’s chocolates for dessert.

Saturday 27 July

Chris, Ross, and Tayla had a morning swim while Danika and Josh slept and then we packed up our room.   We set off for a hike up Charlie Dome which was pretty much straight up. On the way to the summit, we passed some Yurts where people come to watch the Northern Lights in Summer.  It would be amazing in the snow seeing the Northern Lights – may need to come back to do this one day! It took us about 3 hours and after our walk, we did some washing while our tired bodies enjoyed the hot pools.  

We left Chena in time to make it back to Fairbanks in time for the Salmon Bake that we had been looking forward to for quite some time!  All you can eat Salmon, Cod and Prime Beef (as well as Dessert – just as well we had a light lunch in preparation). After dinner, it was off to Walmart to stock up and camped there the night.  We tried to park where the Free WIFI was best, which was right by the entrance to the carpark – which was a mistake, especially on a Saturday night – worst place to sleep ever, so noisy!

We messaged Darrell and Deb Bourne and said we would come to their Church in the morning.  

Friday 26 July

Ross woke up and went to get the pool passes and to see when the room would be ready to go to.  The girl was lovely and said she had shifted bookings around so we could have the room first thing so he came back and got all the breakfast stuff and went and set it up in our room.  We woke the kids and told them we had found a nice place to eat breakfast, to grab their togs, and we will eat breakfast and go for a swim. As we were walking to the room, Danika thought that Ross had found a picnic table to eat breakfast at said she hoped that other people were not helping themselves to our breakfast thinking it was a buffet, all you can eat.  Ross unlocked the door and when they came in and saw our breakfast stuff on the table, they were so excited to see the room, and even more excited when they saw it had two rooms and two bathrooms! We had breakfast and then headed for a swim. Then indoor covered pool used to be the main outside pool. There were 2 indoor spa pools there. The sign said nobody under 18 could go in the outdoor pool which was the nicest one, so we went and asked and they allowed Josh in, may have helped that he towers above Ross now.  The outdoor pool was awesome, surrounded with Rocks with powerful jets as well. It had gravel on the bottom of the pool. We spent a couple of hours in the pool and then came back and had our standard lunch – marmite and chippie sandwiches, banana on bagels etc. Then Tayla and Chris updated the blog while Josh worked through his pilot book and Danika and Ross napped!

We then finished our movie and we went for a swim while Danika cooked dinner in the camper.  On our way back to the room, two moose walked across the road in front of us into a pond to have a drink.  Danika pursued them with the lens until the Moose made it clear that, it was enough and she retracted. After dinner, the double solitaire challenge was on and Tayla and Danika were leading right up and Josh wanted to give up but Mum doesn’t do that and they won in the last round!

Thursday 25 July

We woke up at the Visitors Centre where we had stopped last night and continued on the Richardson Highway from Delta Junction to the North Pole. During this, we passed Eielson Airforce Base which occupies more than 63,195 acres southeast of Fairbanks and has the second-longest runway in North America. The 354th Fighter Wing mission is to prepare the U.S. and allied aviation forces for combat, to deploy Airmen in support of global operations, and to enable the staging of forces to promote U.S. interest in the Asia-Pacific region. We saw all of the military fighter jets lined up and ready to take off in case they were required. Mum was enjoying herself taking photos of all of the planes and the base, when after we had passed it, Dad mentioned the sign which said “no photography”, but only because he wanted the pictures too!

We took the exit of the highway onto ‘Santa Claus Lane’ into the city of the North Pole. The city incorporated the theme “Where the spirit of Christmas lives year-round” with the lamp posts are painted to look like candy canes, and we drove past other roads called ‘St. Nicholas Drive’, ‘Snowman Lane’, and ‘Mistletoe Drive’, to get to Santa Claus House. It was established in 1952 and is the home of the Original letter from Santa. It was everything you would expect the North Pole to be (except without snow). There was Christmas music playing with Christmas decorations, clothes, and toys everywhere! We browsed the gift shop, and Dani was happy as she got some fudge and we also got some Christmas tree ornaments that will always be extra special for us. There was also a Mr. and Mrs. Claus there. But the best part was meeting Santa’s reindeer. We visited the ‘Antler Academy (of Flying & Reindeer Games)’ which was next door to Santa Claus House. We were able to spend half an hour with the reindeer, feeding and interacting with them, and dodging their massive antlers when they turned a different direction. The North Pole also has the World’s Largest Santa Claus standing nearly 50 feet tall!

We stocked up at Safeway supermarket for the next few days and headed out to Chena Hot Springs. Tayla, Danika, and Josh went on a tour of the Ice Museum where we saw many different ice sculptures inside a building lined with ice made to look like an igloo. There were four different rooms in it that you could rent for $600USD a night. It also came with a room inside the lodge as the ice rooms did not have any bathrooms and most people needed that or got too cold. The longest anyone has lasted was 3am. They supply you with caribou hide, a zero degree sleeping bag, caribou pillows and a comforter.

While Tayla, Danika and Josh visited the Ice Museum, Chris went to organise our camping and overheard the lady saying that there was a 50% discount on rooms which included pool passes and towels for two days.   We added up the cost of staying in the camper and two days of pool passes and hiring of towels, it was cheaper for us to hire ‘a family suite’ with all of that included.  The girl was awesome and said we could come in first thing in the morning and do a late checkout so we stayed in the camper tonight but booked the room for tomorrow but didn’t tell the kids.

We had mini fish fillets and battered prawns with baby carrots, cucumber and broccoli dipped in ‘kiwi dip’.

 

Wednesday 24 July

Got up early and finished our audio tour as the Information Centre opened at 8am and we had to return our headsets.  We drove to Claim 33 where they have antique mining equipment on display and Chris fell in love with the rustic cabin and wants to re-create one to Airbnb it at home.  On the way, we saw a fox walk slowly across the road looking at us as he went into the bush, but we didn’t get any photos. We saw Dredge #4 (built in 1912), pulled from the muck of Bonanza Creek in 1992.   It is a huge machine like the one at Chicken. We also saw mining taking place as we drove to the Discovery Claim National Historic Site was originally staked in 1896 (the site of the gold discovery that sparked the Klondike Gold Rush).  We walked around the trail with boards with information and photos describing the story of the discovery, the people and the life during the Gold Rush. There were some mining buckets that had plaques as a memorial to Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie.  George Carmacks whose wife, Kate Carmack, was Skookum Jim’s sister. George registered the claim. The plaques honoured Jim for the good he did with the fortune he made in the Gold Rush, that still exist today to help his native people. We continued to drive to Free Claim #6 which is open to the public to pan for gold so we stopped and tried our luck with the shovel and pans we borrowed from the camping ground.  There were lots of rocks with Gold Flecks in and also we got lots of little flecks of gold but no big nuggets 😊 We continued to drive up Cheechako Hill until we got to a stream so turned around. We returned the Gold Panning gear and headed back into town and drove up to the midnight dome where the locals for over 100 years have had picnics under the midnight sun and there are still celebrations on the 21st June on Summer Solstice.  The view from up there of Dawson City, the Yukon River, and Klondike River was very hazy from the forest fires that have been burning most of the summer.   We came down and went and looked through Robert Service’s Cabin and asked if we could read “The Little Cabin” poem but the guy wouldn’t give it to us and we had no internet so will read it at home, from our Robert Service book we bought from there in 1996.  We then walked around the Yukon Order of Pioneers Cemetery and then visited the Danoja Zho Cultural Centre and then walked around the town visiting the shops and taking photos. We left Dawson at 4.30pm and crossed the ferry with the plan to drive back to Fairbanks, back over the Top of the World, Taylor and Alaska Highways with an ETA of 2.30am at the earliest.  We crossed the US Boarder and then stopped again at Chicken briefly. We saw a Black Bear cross the road but weren’t quick enough to get photos. Danika was hanging out for a steak and we didn’t want to stop to cook our sausages, so we stopped for dinner at Fast Eddies at Tok at 10pm for a really yummy dinner and got back on the road. We had hoped to keep driving but decided to call it a night at 1.30am and parked in the visitor’s centre at Delta Junction for the night where it was really smoky.

 

Tuesday 23 July

We left the campground early to continue along the Taylor Highway, through Jack Wade Junction until we got to Boundary where we crossed the border into Canada, where we lost an hour due to the change in time zones. We continued on the Top of the World Highway until we got to West Dawson. We crossed the Yukon River on the car ferry into Dawson City. This was Chris and Ross’ favourite place in 1996.

We went to the Visitors Centre where we planned our activities for our time in Dawson. Mum visited the bathroom, went to wash her hands, and while turning the tap off, it came off in her hands, creating an indoor water feature which reached right up to the roof. As always, we definitely made our mark. We then checked into the Bonanza Gold RV Park where we had showers and then went out on our adventure.

First, we visited Dawson’s Palace Grand Theatre, once known as the “prettiest little theatre north of San Francisco”. Arizona Charlie Meadows opened the Palace Grand in 1899 and has been reconstructed since due to the wear and tear on the building caused by the permafrost, which is frozen ground the buildings are built on, which freezes in winter, and melts in summer, causing the buildings to move. We went to the show, ‘The Greatest Klondiker’ at 4pm where there were three past Klondike characters and as an audience, had to vote for our favourite, through stories and competitions. One of the activities required audience participation, and Josh and Dani were pointing at Mum to get them to pick her, but ‘George Carmack’, one of the Klondikers came up to Josh and said, “Oh I see we have a volunteer”. So Josh’s plan backfired on himself as he was selected to go up on stage.

Once this show was finished, we went around the Dawson Museum, which is in the Old Territorial Administration Building. It features the Kings of the Klondike and City Life Galleries, First Nation and pre-gold rush exhibits. The museum also houses a Courtroom which is also used as Council Chambers a couple of times a month.

 We went on a ‘Then and Now’ Downtown Walking Tour at 6:30pm which was an hour and a half, taking us around the town highlighting the history of Dawson City through the eyes of past and present residents (wouldn’t recommend our tour guide). We were able to enter the old Bank, the old Post Office and the Red Feather Saloon buildings as part of the tour, where we were greeted by George Carmack from ‘The Greatest Klondiker’ show, which added to the experience as he talked about how it was back in his days. We headed back to the camper and cooked homemade burgers made out of squashed chicken meatballs in the carpark of the Visitor’s Centre.

We then headed to the Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall to watch a can-can style performance by Diamond Tooth Gertie and her Gold Rush Gals at 10pm. We enjoyed Gertie’s Garter and Klondike Kate’s cocktails during the show.

We headed down to the Downtown Hotel where we participated in one of the most disgusting things I have ever done. At the Sourdough Saloon in the Downtown Hotel, Ross, Chris, Tayla, and Danika each had a Sourtoe Cocktail, which dares you to down a shot featuring a real human toe at the bottom of the glass. Ross had bourbon and the girls had honey whiskey as it had to be 40% in order to sterilise the toe. He talked us over the rules; you must drink your shot and the toe must touch your lips to be awarded the certificate. If you swallow the toe, you will be fined $2,500 and are banned from the Downtown Hotel forever. People donate their toes from different causes, whether it be frostbite, diabetes, or deformities. While we were waiting in line, we definitely met some characters and had some good chats. Once we reached the front of the line, we sat down at a table with the Captain, who went through the ritual with us, quoting “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch this gnarly toe”, before he put the toe in our drink. If we completed the challenge, we became a member of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club and gained a certificate. The toe that we had, was extremely long and was removed because it was deformed, which made more sense as to why it was so big! We all completed it and it definitely was not as bad as we thought! Why did we do it? Who knows. When in Rome, right? 

As we felt like our walking tour didn’t give us as much information and history of the town, as we wanted, we also got the self-guided audio tour, which had 15 chapters. We each put our headphones on and drove around the town while listening to the narrator giving us some history about the town, which was very good. We decided to wrap it up for the evening and finish it in the morning, as it was getting late. We ended up getting to bed at 2am (this was 1am U.S. time which wasn’t as bad).

Monday 22 July

We got up early and went to get the truck serviced before heading to Dawson.  While that was being done, we walked to Pioneer Park in Fairbanks which is a 44 acre park created in 1967 as the Alaska Centennial Park to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Alaska becoming a US territory.  We walked around and enjoyed that nobody was there and played on the playground.   Then we got on the road towards Dawson City. We drove to Tok on the Alaskan Highway and stopped at the visitors centre and Chris read in the Milepost that the highlight of Tok was Mukluk Land, so we decided to stop in and it did not disappoint!  We were greeted by Beth, who was a lovely older lady who was obviously very proud of what they had ‘created’ at Mukluk land. We started by playing Skee Ball and then did a tour of the park, and were intrigued by the collection of outhouses, buildings filled with dolls, which looked like something out of a horror movie and old cars, snow machines, a bouncy castle a display cemetery, and of course Santa’s Rocket Ship.  Tayla’s love for mini-golf was satisfied with a mini golf course that was as unique as Mukluk Land. We said our farewells, and she took the opportunity to speak positively into Tayla, Danika and Josh as we left, giving us a Mukluk Gift Bag and sweets for our prizes. She was chuffed to hear us describe Mukluk Land as “Alaska’s Disneyland”. We then got on the Taylor Highway (driving slowly with it’s bumps and warnings of soft shoulders, no barriers and 1000ft drops).  Our next stop was Chicken, supposedly named by early miners who wanted to name their camp ‘ptarmigan (chicken like bird)’ but were unable to spell it and settled for ‘chicken’. The town has no electricity, sewer or water and locals have to provide their own water. It has become a really popular town but much to our disappointment we couldn’t get hot chips to go with our dinner. We were not going to make the border in time to cross, so settled on making it to Walker Fork Campground and had BBQ Chicken, Asparagus and pita chips for dinner.  We started watching a movie and then to bed for an early start. There was no cell phone service, or internet from Tetlin Junction, all the way out to Dawson City.