Day 6 Fairbanks Riverboat and the Gold Mine

Today we spent the day in Fairbanks. The city itself is not much to see. It was the most touristee place that we had been in Alaska. There were not many mountains visible or any other beautiful scenery for that matter. The town was one of the hot spots in the Alaska gold-rush day’s and also was a town that had part of the Alaskan Pipeline. It had a lot of history to it, but kind of just reminded me of a small town in Indiana or Kentucky.

We did get to do some pretty cool tourist things. The first half of the day was spent aboard the Discovery II. While on the boat we saw a bush plane taking off, we visited the home and kennels of one of the competing Iditarod Dog Sled teams, and spent some time in an ancient Athabascan Indian camp. We took our time getting back from the riverboat and hung around the cottage for a bit before heading off on our next adventure.

Next, we boarded a bus and took off for the El Dorado Gold Mine. Once there was we rode around on an open air train through a gold mine and learned about many of the gold mining techniques that were used in the area both long ago and presently. After we were taught how it was done and ‘saw the show’ we were given a gold pan and a bag of dirt. We panned away the dirt and pulled out a few specs of gold dust (about $16 dollars worth). The boys had a good time, and it was all so well done that the grownups had a great time too.

We ended the day at The Pumphouse, a local steak and seafood place. It was definitely the best meal in Alaska! We all ordered something different and passed it all around. Great food, great drinks, beautiful surroundings.