Shade Was at a Premium at the Midnight Sun Festival
We made sure we got to Fairbanks in time to do their Midnight Sun Festival in the old downtown. It was downtown and down home. Lots of food and entertainment that ranged from a continuous demonstration of skateboarding and trick bike riding, to a bunch of men rap dancing, to the 9th U.S Army Band. Variety, in other words. Gary "Alaska" Sloan performed with his sons doing, you guessed it, Louisiana cajun music. The audience was sitting over along on the sidewalk where they had moved almost all the folding chairs to get out of the hot sun. But long guitar and bass rifts brought people from the sidelines to dance in front of the band.
You can see there was one member of the audience that didn't get the concept of watching the band. The dog above had his eyes glued to this lady's sandwich, which eventually he did grab. She didn't seem to notice, so they shared.
And the boy above had fun with his bubble machine.
After we had about all the culture we could stand, we discovered that even though the sun seemed to be telling us it was about 4:00 pm, it was actually 10:30 at night. The only eatery open was Denny's. There, Marsha and I got fed about 45 minutes apart, so there may be some customs here we don't yet understand. Notice the time shown on the bank sign next door, and the sky color. Did I mention it that sunset and sunrise here come at about the same time? We just don't know when.
Museum of the North
One of the "must see" things here is the Museum of the North, located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus.
They also had a piece of art that isn't complete until you sit in it. So I sat. I didn't hear anything there either.
Most of the museum deals with Alaskan History, but that area is so dimly lighted that photos are not successful. Sorry. In one exhibit we learned that the ancestors of today's Native Alaskans arrived from Asia across an ice bridge. I arrived by motor home, so I wonder if that makes me a native? By the way, the natives in this part of Alaska speak the same language as our Navajos and Apaches. Ya' te Hey. Then after the natives arrived, Alaska had a long Russian period, then the gold rush period and then World War II. All very interesting. But the dim lighting and fridgid air conditioning did get their point across. There are long stretches of the year where Alaska is dimly lighted, if at all, and really cold. We were so happy to get outside into the 95-degree heat. Fairbanks is hotter today than parts of Arizona. Go figure.
Outside the museum they had planted the Alaska state flowers, called "Fireweed." Since Dawson, people had been pointing to plants and calling them Fireweed. Turns out the real Fireweed is just now coming out and starting to bloom. Very pretty. See below right.
We also drove 10 miles east to the North Pole. Not the actual pole, but North Pole, Alaska. Santa seems to be in charge of the place anyway. They get all the mail addressed to Santa each year and answer it, we hear.
So right now we are sitting at Barnes and Noble, the bookstore, using their wifi. Today they are having clam chowder or black bean soup in their Starbucks. I think I'll quit and have lunch. This is a handy place. Tomorrow we plan to drive 60 miles out to Chena Hot Springs, a resort where they have a bar in an ice cave, and serve martinis in glasses carved out of ice. Marsha can get a sarsaparilla. On the way back I plan to do some fishing. Our friend Gary Turner tells us the Chena is the place to fish for grayling, a trout-like fish abundant on the small river. Finally I get to start fishing! Then, on Saturday we are taking the paddle wheeler riverboat Discovery down the Chena to the Tanana River. So I plan to post some pix of those adventures here before we head to Denali National Park on Monday.
Stay tuned!
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