Nenana, AK to Fairbanks, AK

Our first stop of the day was the Nenana Visitor’s Center on our way to Fairbanks. Riley, at the visitor’s center was an Iditarod winner. The visitor’s center has a sod roof. Actually, quite a few buildings, we have seen, here in Alaska, have sod roofs.

Every year in Nenana they have a contest to see who can come the closest to guessing the exact date and time when the ice flow in the river will break up. They put a tripod on the ice in the river. It is attached by cable to a clock in a tower, when the ice breaks up, it pulls the cable and the clock stops and an alarm sounds and the contest is over. For $2.00, we bet that in 2011, the ice will break up on April 25th at 3:33 AM. When the ice breaks up, it sort of explodes, sending huge chucks of ice up to 35 ft in the air.

With Kristin having worked for Sierra Pacific Industries, we were surprised to see a palate of SPI lumber in the trail freight yard at Nenana.

We drove along the Parks Highway to Fairbanks. After we dropped our trailer at camp for the night, we went to Santa Claus House in North Pole, AK. The reindeer there looked really healthy.

Next we went to Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. The train we saw there was used by Warren Harding when he visited Alaska. The Riverboat was the Nenana Riverboat. It now has quite an extensive and authentic layout of all the villages on the Nenana River. They are set up sort of like a railroad layout along the walls.