Sunday 19th June Fairbanks

Up at 7.45am. Morning sightseeing featuring the highlights of Alaska's second largest city, Fairbanks. We were going on a 3 hour leisure cruise aboard the Sternwheeler Riverboat Discovery III on the Chena and Tanana Rivers. While waiting to board, Pete and I went in the -40 degree room and had our photo taken, it was bloody freezing. We boarded our boat and as were cruised along the Captain pointed out who lived where and different points of interest on the shore line. We saw a bush floatplane takeoff alongside the boat and visited the home and kennels of the late four time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher and saw her champion sled dogs in action. The puppies were so cute. We had a personalised tour of a Chena Indian Village and I met Susan Butchers' husband when I bought her book. He signed it for me. Les picked us up from the docks and took us to Fred Myers so we could purchase some groceries, film and lunch. After that Les took us around his hometown pointing out his favourite spots. We finished at the Cultural Centre which was very informative. We made our way back to the hotel had a short break and 12 of us headed to the airport for a flight over the Arctic Circle. We were so lucky to be flying on the longest summer day - the summer solstice, where the sun is over the horizon for a continuous 24 hours. We were all also a little nervous because thunderstorms had been forecast and the weather looked terrible for flying. Our plane departed at 7.40pm and once we flew through the clouds at Fairbanks the sky cleared. We were all amazed at the vastness of the wilderness and the size of the mighty Yukon River and the bends and curves of the Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline. I was in the co pilots seat and had a great view of the gps and when it read 66.33 I knew we had crossed over the Arctic Circle. We landed and our Pilot Steve put on a mozzie hat.........who would have thought the biggest, biggest mozzies lived in the Arctic. We were swatting and waving our hands so much so that the next plane that landed thought we were waving to them. Our guide, Shelby, arrived with a tennis bat that was actually a electronic mozzie zapper. Our first stop was a small town called Wiseman a small community of eight. We met Jim who was a local and he spoke to us about life in Wiseman. He has a two year old daughter who eats raw moose met sprinkled with salt, yuk yuk yuk. He was a bit over the top with his gung ho attitude. We then stopped at Coldfoot which was a fuel stop and supplies shop. This is where the oil line workers live. Shelby then drove us back to the airstrip and we boarded our plane. We were heading into rough weather and had to do an instrument landing. We saw the midnight sun which was very special and landed in Fairbanks at 12.20am. Coby spewed on the plane.................. We arrived back at our hotel at around 1am.