North to Alaska: Day 28

Welcome! Day 28 (Sept 5) of North to Alaska

Quote: Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. Francis Bacon

Today we planned to sleep late due to the late night from Arctic Circle Tour, the plan worked again. It is good when plans work, it is sort of like playing baseball if a third of your at bats are hits you are a hero, if a third of your plans work you consider yourself really sharp. But I digress, I got up about 7:30 and walked on the tread mill for 20 minutes. Cassie was still asleep at 8:30 so I had a little breakfast from breakfast bar. I then decided I would take Cassie some coffee and toast with jelly just in case she didn’t make it before the breakfast bar closes at 9 AM. I got to the room about 9 and Cassie was just getting up, moving slowly. The coffee and toast was ok since we had to eat lunch around 12 noon. We were scheduled for a boat trip down the Chena River. The hotel shuttle was leaving at 1 PM. We found a small café about a block from the hotel called “The Fudge Pot”. It had sandwiches and chips as well as fudge. It was a nice little place. The fudge was good too.

We made it back in time for the shuttle Riverboat Discovery oddly enough right on the banks of the Chena River. It appeared the morning tour was nearly full as there were still several busses waiting to take the passengers somewhere. Our tour was about half full, meaning not crowded at all. The driver of our shuttle last night after the Circle Tour told Cassie she needed to be on the left side of the boat for the first part of the tour. Cassie heard her say turn left when you get on the boat. Since you could enter from either the front or back of the boat from the dock Cassie quickly determined if you enter the boat from the back and turned left you would get wet so she decided to enter the front of the boat. I said that was good just find a seat opposite the dock next to the window. She did and was happy as we could see the demonstrations clearly from our seats.

They of course had to start the trip by telling us about the boat. How it can to be the third generation of the Discovery boats. How the company started as a freight company around 1900. That Fairbanks was about 1200 river miles from the Bearing Sea and how the steam freighter could make about 10 round trips a summer season. How in the 1940s the freight business by freighter was not profitable and that the family decided to switch to passenger tour service and built Discovery I themselves and started the tour company. Then came Discovery II and finally Discovery III the boat we were on. Each boat generation got bigger and more economical to sail. For instance the Discovery III is flat bottom boat and only displaces about three feet of water. It is a family operation as children as young as 6 begin working on the boat doing various task. The tasks increase as the children age and can do more. Some continue on thru summers in college and beyond. One of the girls was the youngest female in Alaska to get her Captain’s license. The Captain of our tour is a member of the family, not the girl.

Now to what we saw. The first demo was a bush plane taking off in the river beside the boat. It was a Piper Cub 1951 model. This model is no longer being sold. There are several older plans in service in Alaska since they are easier to maintain and require shorter takeoff and landing area. The purpose of the demo was to show how fast the plane could be in the air and how short a space it needed to land. Next we saw a demonstration of a dog sled team in training. They had several puppies being trained to pull the sled. I thought it odd that they start our training all puppies to be lead dog realizing that only a few will ultimately be lead dogs.

We then saw some reindeer which are really Caribou in a pen (domesticated). Later we docked at an Alaskan village. We saw an active Fish Camp where salmon were dressed out and hung to dry. Different types of salmon are used for different purposes i.e. Chum salmon are used primarily to feed their dogs therefore they are prepared differently than Silver salmon which are prime for humans. I don’t care a lot for salmon so I did not pay too much attention as they spoke. I was amazed at how quickly they could fillet a fish and prepare it for drying. We were then given about an hour to walk around other parts of the village and hear talks at each stop. Cassie walked around and took a few pictures. I was beginning to get stopped up (congested) so I elected to stay on the boat. I became bored so decided I would go to the upper deck, to get a better cell connection, and call Maggie and/or Abby. I did finally get thru and talked with Pam, Maggie, Drew, and Katie. Later after a few attempts I got thru to Tami, Cassie was back by then so I could only say hello before she took over. Abby was at cheerleading practice and then some school function so I will try and talk with her later this week.

After the boat rip I was not feeling very well so Cassie walked across the street and got her a pulled pork sandwich. I tried to nap.

So ended day 28. Tomorrow the train back to Anchorage and hopefully my car still in the parking lot.