Day 18 - 9/8/2018 - Around Fairbanks

Today's Weather:  High 61, Low 34, Brilliant sun, light winds.

Fairbanks is the largest city in the anterior of Alaska (pop. 32,750).  Located at 64.8 degrees north latitude, it was the farthest north we journeyed.  Once a gold rush hot spot, then a pipeline boom-town, it is now known as “Golden Heart of Alaska”.  Fairbanks still has operating gold mines and embraces its colorful gold rush roots.  

This morning we took a fantastic  3 hour Riverboat Discovery Cruise on the Chena and Tanana Rivers aboard the Discovery III, a flat bottom paddle-wheel riverboat.  We enjoyed the informative narration about Native culture, viewed the famous Iditarod musher, Susan Butcher’s sled dogs in action, saw a bush pilot take off and land his plane  on the river alongside the boat, and walked through the Old Chena Indian Village which was set up to highlight the culture and history of the Athabascan people.  This was our chilliest morning of our trip.  Tom had to scrape frost off the windshield, but it was sunny and warmed up quickly so we enjoyed a few hours on the water sitting on the outside 3rd level deck.  On this boat trip we were again able to view Denali.  So far we have seen it from Anchorage, "up close" and now from Fairbanks.