We had our luggage out at 7:00 and met at 7:45, but the clouds were hanging low on the hills, so we were delayed for an hour. Dawson City airport is a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) airport, so low clouds stop all traffic. The clouds did not change for a couple hours, and we did not end up going to the airport until after 11:00. The bus drove right up to the 737 on the apron of the runway and the security check consisted of a metal-detecting wand and a guy looking over our carry-on baggage at the steps up to the plane.
The flight to Fairbanks took only 55 minutes and we changed to Alaska time, so we arrived five minutes before we left.
The Westmark Fairbanks room was large and very nice, and the in-room WiFi was reliable and sometimes very fast. The only thing I would change about this room was that the plumbing made strange noises that sounded like distant explosions in the middle of the night – the toilets flushed like an enthusiastic jet. We relaxed for a bit and uploaded some photos and downloaded some app updates.
We walked a few blocks down to the Chena River and the downtown part of Fairbanks.
It definitely has the feel of a sometimes-struggling frontier town, with many buildings in mediocre to very poor shape with a smattering of new-looking buildings. But it does have the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center, a really nice museum and interpretive center funded by Doyon, Ltd., the tribal cooperative that manages land use for the benefit of the native peoples. We spent almost an hour looking at exhibits, then watched an hour-long documentary movie about grizzly bears.
We had pre-booked an excursion to an Alaska Salmon Bake dinner combined with the Golden Heart Revue at the Palace Theatre. This is all at a big touristy center where there is also a big, partially-restored sternwheeler, a silly train, a bunch of art and kitsch shops, and various old buildings and equipment. The dinner was nice: all-you-can eat salmon, cod, and prime rib with an assortment of side dishes and desserts.
You can eat outside at one of the hundred or so picnic tables, and they have some inside tables as well. The show was a vaudeville presentation of the history of Fairbanks, which styles itself the “Golden Heart of Alaska”. It was a funny and entertaining way to learn history and, judging by interpretive signs we read later, accurate.
