Day 44 Fairbanks Riverboat Discovery

The day started with not very promising weather, heavy rain and fog and a forecast of more. We had scheduled a three hour cruise on the stern wheeler riverboat Discovery and it was not looking good all morning! At noon the rain let up and by 1:30PM the sun was peeking through the gloom and promising good weather for the cruise.

We spent a delightful three and a half hours on one of the best activities of our trip. The Discovery is family owned and has been in operation over four generations and fifty-seven years. All of the children and grandchildren have worked on the boats and most are qualified USCG stern wheeler captains.Our trip down the Chena and Tanana Rivers included a float plane takeoff and landing alongside and interesting commentary of the life along the river. One log home being rebuilt after a fire is owned by a former Madison, WI attorney named Jack McMannus who crashed an airplane in Peoria 25 years ago and became a customer of the company Jeff worked for there.

We stopped for a riverside presentation by David Monson, husband of the late Susan Butcher, four time Iditarod dog sled race winner, about the kennels they have raising Alaskan huskies for racing. The dogs were also present for a close up discussion when we stopped at the Chena River Abathascan Village where we saw examples of the 10,000 year old culture of the first residents of Alaska.This is more of native Abathascan Dixie Alexander's work. The parka made up of several different animal furs and the decorations are made from dyed moose and caribou antlers.

Our next stop was a demonstration of an Abathascan Fish Camp where the natives spent the summer catching and smoking fish that was one of the basics of their subsistence lifestyle for centuries. The salmon, caribou, and moose were the three essentials of their survival.

After returning from the cruise we drove a few miles to the Ester Gold Camp for dinner. Ester was located near the richest creek of placer gold in the world, Cripple Creek on the outskirts of Fairbanks. We decided to pass on a show at the Malamute Saloon in Ester because of the hour and returned to watch the seaplane arrivals at Chena Marina.

We are going to meet Lee and Jeanne Faust in the morning for a late breakfast and then drive to Chena Hot Springs for a soak and a visit to the Igloo Hotel there.