Riverboat Discovery – Fairbanks Alaska

Sunday, June 21, 2009 – Day 52 – The First Day of Summer – Longest Day of the Year and Father’s Day

Heard from David and Kevin today, wishing me a happy Father’s Day.  I guess they got lucky not being at home as they didn’t have to buy the “old guy” a gift.  I never thought that I’d miss them as much as I do.

We went grocery shopping this morning and then went on a stern wheel boat.  The Riverboat Discovery.  This operation has been a family tradition for well over a Century, as the founder of the company came here during the gold rush and became a riverboat pilot.  Every successive generation has carried on the family tradition.  The boat does a short cruise on the Chena River, where it meets the Nenanna River.  It used to go up the Nenanna but silt from the river has all but closed up the channel for a boat this size.  Smaller motor boats can still get through  because of their much shallower draft.  Homeowners along the route all come out to wave as the boat cruises by and the commentator seems to know each person on shore and calls out to them over the public address system.  There are staged events along the route. 

The commentator noted that 1 in 60 Alaskans have a pilots licence and it seems that there are small planes everywhere.  Considering the long distances between places in Alaska there is good reason. The first staged event was a take-off and landing of a pontoon plane.  He didn’t seem to need the take-off length of a land based plane.  He did a quick fly by and then landed the plane and spoke with the commentator on a wireless microphone.  The pilot then took-off a last time to enjoy Father’s Day with his family.

Next we were entertained by a sled dog demonstration.  This was led by the husband of the late Susan Butcher. Susan Butcher was a five time winner of the Iditarod Trail endurance race and her kennel has produced many winning dog teams. After a brief introduction they hitched up 10 dogs to a converted ATV for a trip around a quarter mile track.  They reached a top speed of 20 miles/hour.  These dogs love to work and run and they behaved exactly like the Denali Huskies in their eagerness to run. And also like the Denali Huskies these were jumping up on the roofs of their houses and barking loudly as if to say, “Pick me, Pick me!”

We sailed down the river a little further to an Athabascan Indian village, that was a re-creation of a typical summer camp, with some extras.  There was a demonstration of how they would take their salmon catch and prepare it for smoking. They would only catch as much as they could process and nothing would go to waste.  Entrails and heads were used for dog food or used in fish head soup.  There was also a demonstration of the clothing that they would make some of which was very finely detailed.  A very pretty girl of Eskimo descent modelled a sun parka. Because they were a nomadic hunting people they had different types of houses depending on their location and activities.  We returned to the dock after the demonstrations and we then returned to the dock from which we had departed almost 3 1/2 hours earlier.  The ship was unloaded fairly quickly considering the number of people from cruise ship tours (14 bus loads in total) who were on board.