We spent our last day in Alaska at Fairbanks. We were supposed to catch the flight at 1 AM or so from Fairbanks. So we decided to explore places in and around Fairbanks.
A gold dredge is a placer mining machine that extracts gold from sand, gravel, and dirt using water and mechanical methods. A large gold dredge uses a mechanical method to excavate material (sand, gravel, dirt, etc.) using steel “buckets” on a circular, continuous “bucketline” at the front end of the dredge. The material is then sorted/sifted using water. On large gold dredges, the buckets dump the material into a steel rotating cylinder (a specific type of trommel called “the screen”) that is sloped downward toward a rubber belt (the stacker) that carries away oversize material (rocks) and dumps the rocks behind the dredge. The cylinder has many holes in it to allow undersized material (including gold) to fall into a sluice box. The material that is washed or sorted away is called tailings. The rocks deposited behind the dredge (by the stacker) are called “tailing piles.” The holes in the screen were intended to screen out rocks (e.g., 3/4 inch holes in the screen sent anything larger than 3/4 inch to the stacker). Source: Wiki.
We then headed towards the Pioneer park. Thanks to the travel blogs, I heard about this place called 40 minus fairbanks, where you can experience -40 degrees. Once we were there, we got to know that the shop was probably shut down. They had not opened this 2013 summer it seems. Disappointed, we left to catch a glimpse of Denali and Mt. McKinley near University of Alaska, Fairbanks. It is located near the museum of the north. There are no signs, nothing and after going in circles, we came to the viewpoint finally. But we could not see Mt. McKinley. It is supposed to appear at the right most corner of the view. But when we inquired, a person there told us that only very rarely can we see Mt. McKinley from there. So we had two disappointments back to back.
We still had plenty of time left so we went to Ice museum in downtown Fairbanks. I had read some bad reviews about the museum, saying it is not that good. We decided to go for the Aurora show there. It was a very nice video and I am glad we saw it. The video was full of some wide angle shots of Aurora caught from multiple locations, multiple times of the year. Most of them seemed to have been taken on top of a hill or behind hills and forests, somewhere in the outskirts of the city. They also looked like time lapse videos (series of photos stitched into a video). We did not get to see the ice sculptures there.
After that, it was time to have some dinner (Pizza) and then head back to the airport to catch our return flight. Alaska is so beautiful that I want to visit it again sometime. It is definitely the most beautiful place I have seen so far.
Other posts on Alaska:
Alaska trip 1 – Anchorage
Alaska trip 2 – Seward
Alaska trip 3 – Denali
Alaska trip 4 – Coldfoot
Thanks for the wonderful travelogue. You wrote “I got to know about this awesome tour thanks to someone who had blogged about the tour”. These should be my words.
I am glad you were able to actually see Alaska Pipeline. It is a remarkable engineering feats of modern time.
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Thanks SG. I hope these travelogues will help you in planning your trip to Alaska.
Yes Alaska pipeline is really amazing. I saw one of the documentaries on how they put it there and it was so challenging in such extreme weathers.
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The ice museum sounds cool! Would love to visit one. Just imagine how difficult it would be to sculpt on ice. Combine it with the fact that you can’t preserve it for posterity. You could have tried eating an ice-cream in the ice cups and eating the ice cups too 😛
Destination Infinity
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Yeah many blogs said ice museum wasn’t that great, but I just loved it. It is so difficult to sculpt and then maintain it. oh yeah eating ice cream in an ice cup would be wonderful I think 🙂
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yes, travel blogs are a wealth of information nowadays!!
http://www.myunfinishedlife.com
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very true 🙂 thanks for visiting.
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Hmmm….this place sounds very interesting! I just forwarded this to my son. We might visit this place when we visit him!
Thanks, Ash!
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Yeah it is interesting actually.. you should visit it next time you are in US. Let me know if you visit US, we can try to meet up 🙂
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Sounds like awesome trip, really. This will be my reference guide,when we go to alaska. 🙂 Hope you get to visit the place again soon. 🙂
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yeah it was really good. I hope these posts will help you when you visit Alaska 🙂
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Hi, Please accept the Liebster from my blog 🙂 Do hop in when u get time !!
–Seema
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Thanks Seema for the award. I will take it up soon 🙂
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i like your new look. lovely coffee brown, love this color.
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Thanks D. I liked this theme too. 🙂
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Aaah, I love the in-depth posts. I never knew Alaska had gold. How fun it must have been mining for it 🙂 How do you maintain an ice glass, btw? Wouldn’t it melt by the time you get back?
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Thanks Nish. Yeah we had to throw the glass once we were outside the museum. It was hot outside, so in no time the glass would have melted and our car would have turned into a pool.
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It’s very interesting post. Thanks for sharring
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Thanks Suman and welcome to my blog 🙂
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