2017 - June 3rd - Alaska - Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge

Our anticipation and excitement for this day has arrived. We have had this plan for vacationing with Pam and Fred on the Princess Cruise Line's Alaska Land and Sea Adventure since the four of us cruised our 15 day Hawaiian cruise in March of 2015. This is a two-week excursion, both land and cruise. After the planning and scheduling flights and all, we are on our way. We were to fly out of Long Beach but the airline called in early morning to tell us that the plane was running late and we would miss our connection in Salt Lake City. As we had booked the reservations so many months prior, there had been changes over the time. So Delta Airlines changed our flight to one leaving from LAX that goes directly to Seattle skipping the layover in Salt Lake. We were taken from Long Beach to LAX by cab paid by Delta. At the Seattle airport we had dinner and awaited the arrival of Pam and Fred's flight where we all were on the same Delta flight to Fairbanks. We arrived in Fairbanks around midnight which seemed like mid-afternoon sunlight. As the folks in Fairbanks told us, there is not twenty-four hours of sunlight, but they do have twenty-four hours of daylight! It never got dark. We rode the coach provided by Princess Cruises to our first lodge accommodations at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge. From the bronze Moose outside of the lodge front door to the bear and thermometer at the door, the bench and all of the decor of the lodge, we were impressed and ready to make this our first home of the trip!

We checked in our lovely rooms and had a great first night's sleep. In the morning, we met up in the lodge's Edgewater dining room that would be our meal destination while at our Fairbank's lodge. All of the meals were delicious with a wide variety of foods expertly prepared and were the start of Mary Anne's daily dose of fresh Alaskan Salmon eating! It is beautifully decorated from a life-size bronze Caribou statue to the Grizzly lamp chandeliers! I insisted on a photo of the two sisters, Mary Anne and Pam, by the Caribou statue in the dining room. The Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge sits on the banks of the Chena River. The views of the river and the surrounding mountains and outdoors of the Interior are fabulous!

We wanted to get the most of our trip so had traveled on Friday to get a full day Saturday in our Fairbanks location. We decided to visit Pioneer Park and see what all it had to offer. Pioneer Park was built in 1967 as a celebration of the 100th year anniversary of Alaska’s purchase from Russia. The Park is bordered on the north by the Chena River. The name is of Athabascan origin, and is derived from “che” meaning stick and “na” meaning river—The Stick River. This is a historic park filled with old buildings and mining equipment. The Harding Car, also known as the Denali Car, was a passenger, railroad car named after President Warren G. Harding. Harding rode in this car when he came to Alaska in 1923 to drive the Golden Spike for the Alaska Railroad. Harding’s presidency was filled with suspicions of corruption and scandals. Not only did Harding have a difficult presidency politically, but it was common knowledge that he had mistresses and fathered a child outside of his marriage. Harding felt that a trip North might improve his public image. His trip was donned “The Voyage of Understanding.” Harding died just a couple weeks after he left Alaska. The cause of his death was listed as a heart attack. However, the President’s wife refused to allow an autopsy to be performed, and the true cause of death remains a mystery. Suggested causes of death include poisoning by his wife, poisoning by another individual for political reasons, and food poisoning from tainted shellfish he may have eaten while in Alaska. The Riverboat Nenana is a sternwheeler, nicknamed the “Queen of the Yukon.” She was commissioned by the Alaska Railroad and built in 1933. Her parts were made in Seattle and then shipped to Nenana, Alaska where she was constructed. She plied the Tanana and Yukon Rivers from 1933 to 1954. The Riverboat Nenana originally burned wood—roughly a cord of wood an hour—and there was storage for 230 cords of wood. In 1948, she switched to burning oil. The boat’s engines had the most advanced design of the time: twin, tandem 330-horsepower horizontal condensing engines. The engine could recycle approximately 85% of its steam into water, and the design allowed the boat to operate very quietly. Pioneer Park is full of original cabins, homes, and other buildings that reflect the origins of Alaska. We all thought Pam would have liked it back then as we found places with doors just her height!

Here we are first introduced to a Cache which is a storage room on stilts to store supplies and household items in protection against bears and other wild animals. Throughout our Alaskan adventures we will run across these often.

And what would Alaska be without dog sleds? ... and here's Mary Anne !!!

Many other buildings are scattered throughout town like the Palace Hotel and Bathhouse, trading stores and others. It was a delightful place to stroll and look! With twenty-four hours of daylight and just coming out of winter, the flowers are big, bright and beautiful. Everywhere we go there are gardens and hanging baskets of flowers. Just gorgeous! A Fairbanks family favorite, there is a playground located at the center of Pioneer Park. We could just imagine the grandkids having a great time here. Pioneer Hall was designed to represent a fine 1900’s era building. Pioneer Museum is filled with fascinating artifacts of early Fairbanks. The settlers of Fairbanks probably would have been surprised if they had known their everyday utensils would one day be on display in a museum. Few of the museum’s pieces are a hundred years old. Not very old by most museum standards, but their value is enormous considering the distance they traveled, often in backpacks, on dog sleds, or over thousands of miles of water to reach Fairbanks. Pioneers didn’t lack for inventiveness with materials at hand in the Alaska wilderness, and they didn’t deprive themselves of the gadgets and conveniences of civilization either. It is fascinating collection.

The Tanana Valley Railroad Museum houses the original steam locomotive (named Engine #1) that was shipped to the area in 1905 by steamboat and barge to pioneer the first track in the state for the Tanana Valley Railroad.

Visitor like us purchase tickets to hop aboard the Crooked Creek Whiskey Island Railroad encircling Pioneer Park and pulled by Old 67. An on-board guide (dressed in period attire) points out historic attractions and activities in each section. We passed by historic log cabins that were moved from downtown to create a sense of what it was like to live here when it was “the world’s largest log cabin town.” We pass by the Native Village, and look down on Mining Valley, a section dedicated to the mining legacy of the region.
Walking through and exploring the Native Village and Totem at the village. The village has a couple of Kashims, Alaskan Eskimo house and buildings with sod roofs and seal intestine sky-light lighting.

The train ride took us through the Mining Valley where we viewed some of the equipment used in the early mining operations. The large water spout is called a monitor or a giant. It was used to wash large amounts of soil and rock from the hillside to make it easier for prospectors to remove gold. Steam shovels, like those in the Valley, helped to reduce some of the backbreaking labor of those early days. We also visited the Pioneer Air Museum where we found logbooks, clothing, maps, early flight instruments, and aircraft sporting skis and floats adapted to rugged Alaskan runways. Displayed are a few of the earliest aircraft in the state from the 1930s and 1940s used in military, commercial, and bush flights. We had a great time at Pioneer Park and these have been just a few of our memories. We then decided to go into downtown Fairbanks. After Pioneer Park, Fairbanks wasn't too exciting! The cab drivers were really the highlight of the trip. It seems one must be scraggly shaven, not many teeth, and have a clunker or pick-up to drive as a cabbie. Experiences make memories! We were taken to what was supposed to be the shopping area. We made the best of it and even found a pretty nice gift shop in Fairbanks. Some of the buildings were pretty fascinating with the paintings on them. We passed the World's Largest International Dog Mushing and Sled Museum or at least so they claim. This Alaskan Indian painting covering a wall on one of the buildings was really pretty. All around downtown Fairbanks are these pipes that are painted with different art which provide fresh air intake for the utilidor (an above ground, insulated network of pipes and cables, used to convey water and electricity in communities situated in areas of permafrost).

Also in Fairbanks we saw in every parking lot and parking space electric plugs that are used in the cold winters (40 to 60 below zero) for cars to plug in their under-the-hood heaters for their motors to keep them from freezing. We returned to our Lodge, relaxed awhile and had a great dinner. Mary Anne and I decided to hike down the road about a half mile to the Pikes Hotel. Across the Chena River was a large "Love Alaska" that we had seen when we came to the Lodge on our coach. We wanted to take a photo and see what else was down that way. In front of the Pikes Hotel was a sign declaring that they had hosted the start line of the 2003 and 2015 Iditarod Dog Sled Race. Normally the Iditarod is between Anchorage and Nome at a distance of 1049 miles. Pike's acting as host of the Iditarod enjoyed 20,000 spectators, 200 dog mushers and dog sled handlers, and 1200 barking dogs in harness along this stretch of the frozen Chena River. We enjoyed reading the Iditarod sign and seeing the decorations at the hotel including a small dog sled and a topiary moose and her calf. The walking exercise wasn't bad either! We had an amazing first day in Alaska! Now time to rest and get ready for tomorrow, day 2!!! To see all of the pictures in this album, click on this link.