The Long and Winding Road….to Manley Hot Springs



One of the sculptures in the University of Alaska's Museum of the North.

Before heading to Manley Hot Springs, visited some of the sights in Fairbanks. This is the 2^nd largest city in Alaska but has only about 35,000 people.  Still all the amenities are present. Visited the University of Alaska Museum of the North. This is a very impressive university museum – I personally haven’t seen one better. It had a combination of art, history, cultural and science exhibits and did a great job with all.

The museum was designed to reflect Alaska's glaciers, auroras and flowing rivers.
Squint your eyes and maybe you will see it - I couldn't. Nice looking building though.

Blue Babe - a fossilized steppe bison, about 36,000 years old. Almost perfectly preserved. The skin has a blue tint.

Russ taking a break in an Alaskan outhouse.

An example of the artwork.

The view of Fairbanks from the University of Alaska campus.
So many trees, you don't really see the town.

Took a sternwheeler ride where the pilot was a fourth generation steamboat captain.  The large boat (over 200 feet long) was relatively new (1986).  It had been built in Seattle, taken by barge up to the mouth of the Yukon and then piloted up the river to its present location on the Chena River.  The narrative during the ride was very interesting – they had various people on the shore mic’ed up to talk about their particular story, including a dog musher, (Susan Butcher's husband), a floatplane pilot and an Athabasca native. Stopped at a replica of an Athabasca native village and heard docents talk about life in the village. All in all, one of the better “tourista” attractions I have been on.  The weather was fantastic going down the river.  Just as we got back on the ship to return upstream, a huge thunderstorm opened up.  But we were dry and warm, so it was pretty neat to be moseying back up the river with the rain pounding down. It tapered off by the time we got back, so we didn’t get too wet at all. (Note: be patient if you click on the movie clip, it may take a little while to load)

A guide modeling a pretty fancy parka, rated for -20 degrees.

Russ and his friend, Bullwinkle.

A representative trapper's cabin.
Sod was deliberately put on the roof to waterproof the cabin.

A dog mushing demonstration.  Susan Butcher, who passed away in 2006, won the Idideraod race four times. Her husband, David Monson, who has won several dog sled races of his own continues the dog training program she set up.

These dogs are so excited to race, they just can't wait!

Fairbanks has a theme park, Pioneer Village, which was a combination of Knotts Berry Farm in the old days (before the roller coasters), your grandma’s attic, your grandpa’s garage and the backyard playground. Several turn of the century log cabins from the area had been moved there and are now small stores. An old sternwheeler had been moved on site.  A geodome housed a pioneer airplane museum which, I swear, had spare parts from every plane that had been in Alaska pre-1950, including several that had crashed. And there was an area museum with lots of interesting household artifacts like sewing machines, dolls and furniture. Beautiful flowers were everywhere.

Met my friend, Jill, and her friend, Bea, for dinner Saturday night.  We sat on a deck overlooking the Chena River at the Pumphouse Restaurant.  This used to be a pumphouse for the mining industry, but now it pumps beer.  I’ve been friends with Jill since 7^th grade.  For several years now, she has come up to Alaska during the summer to spend a few weeks with Bea and her husband, Al, in Manley Hot Springs.  This is a very small community of around 50 people about 150 miles northwest of Fairbanks. They say it is the fartherest west you can drive in the U.S.  You drive down a very, very long and windy gravel road to get to it (the Elliot Highway.) We drove out on Sunday and spent two days enjoying the area and the people. We were apparently the object of much derision on our trip out as the local bus (yes they have a bus that goes out to Manley) trailed behind us for about a mile before we realized it and pulled over enough for them to pass.  Jill and Bea had taken that bus to Fairbanks on Saturday and were on the bus headed back to Manley when it overtook us. The bus driver kept honking (but we never heard him) and asked Jill if these were her friends from California. Everyone on the bus was hooting and hollering, apparently they thought it hilarious that we were going so slowly. So we will be the talk of the town for a while. Had some wonderful dinners with Bea, Al and some of their friends.  Ate Tanana River salmon (delicious), wild mushrooms (just as delicious) and fresh from the garden veggies. It was very cool to get to know some real Alaskans and to see how they lived. I even learned how to play a little Mah Jong.  Fun, fun, fun.

You can see the road that goes out to Manley (the Elliott highway) in the distance.

 

The bridge that goes over the Tanana slough and into the town of Manley Hot Springs.

Bea and Al's garden - provided delicious radishes, cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes for dinner.

 

Al has a lumber yard (you can see it in the back here) - he has built several beautiful homes using lumber from his property.

The trip back into Fairbanks was a bit stressful since we left Manley with less than half a tank of gas and coasted into the first gas station we saw (140 miles later) on fumes. So now we know the fuel capacity of the van.  Gas mileage isn’t great with the big green machine – about 9.5 miles per gallon.  At least the gas isn’t as expensive as it was in Canada – around $3.96 per gallon, whereas we paid as much as $6 a gallon in Canada.