Day 14 - Jun 27

We had a lovely morning in the campground at North Pole AK swatting 10,000 mosquitos. (Keith's six cans of bug spray are a blessing.) The surrounding area is densely forested with birch and poplar trees, and an undergrowth solid with ferns. But, no animals.

Then, as promised, we delivered letters to Santa's Workshop - a miniature Bronner's. We had a lot of fun looking at holiday decorations that you don't see in the lower 48. Keith even sat on Santa's lap for a picture.  Ho Ho Ho. (So did Chris.) From there we moved on to Fairbanks and are currently camped at the Chena River RV Park for the next two days. 

The fires are still very evident - lots of haze and smoke smell. But this afternoon the skies cleared somewhat and we could see that there are mountains in the far distance. So we surmise that Fairbanks sits in a large valley. We've heard that there are detours, currently, on the way to Denali because of the fires. We'll be in Fairbanks, however, until July 1st when we have reservations at Denali. Hopefully, the fires will be contained by then.

We've also spoken to a fellow camper who came from Denali, and he said all the animals had taken to the hills because it's too hot (because of the weather, not the fires) to be down where visitors can see them. Some of the 8 and 12 hour bus tours saw no animals at all. (Pray for animal viewings. Thanks)

Mid-morning we found our way to the Visitors' Information Bureau in Fairbanks and took pictures of the largest antler arch in the world (?). It consists of caribou, elk, and moose antlers collected for a number of years from all over Alaska. Most impressive.

For you quilters, we saw a Athabascan Indian quilt of Alaskan scenes. Absolutely impressive. It was to be raffled off. Thought you'd enjoy seeing a section of it. The background quilting has many items worked in:

a bear head, flowers, trees, fish, etc. It is all machine quilted, and intricately detailed.

We were going to look up an Indian craft shop that sells muskox yarn. We drove around downtown Fairbanks for about 30 minutes trying to locate 6th Avenue @ H Street. Finally, we called the shop and, very embarrassed, discovered it's in Anchorage. We had a great laugh with the proprietor. 

This afternoon we visited to the botanical gardens at the Univ of Alaska Fairbanks. We had a pleasant walk among the flowers and trees, testing our knowledge of the various species. UAF has been running scientific experiments on all kinds of plants to find the most hearty to survive the winter in Alaska's interior. They've been doing this since 1979. It's interesting to know that even cross-breading some of the hardiest species does not make them tolerant of the climate up here. They might get a heartier plant but the fruit (like berries on bushes) are not as big or sweet as the originals which aren't tolerant of the climate. The gardens, however, were many and beautiful to look at.

Tomorrow we plan a visit to the UAF Museum of Art, which has a large exhibit of Indian artifacts and art from the area and some petrified 35,000 year old animals retrieved from the frozen tundra. Looking forward to it.