Fairbanks is different from all of the other Alaskan towns we’ve been to. It’s not so tourist, there aren’t gift shops on every corner and there’s really not much to do. We did everything “touristy” in Fairbanks in one day. It was a full, long day, but not the longest we’ve had in Alaska.

One of the coolest things we’ve done in Alaska is The Gold Dredge No. 8!

 You start off with a train ride where they stop every so often to explain the different types of or equipment used in gold mining.

The train would stop and they would actually demonstrate the old equipment.

In the photo above you’ll see pipes strewn across the ground and rods stuck into the ground. One guy would be in charge of driving 20 to 30 of those rods into the frozen ground each day. Then, water would be pumped through the pipes into the rods and in the ground to try and thaw the ground enough to dredge for gold. I always here the term “get rich quick” associated with the Gold Rush…but there really isn’t anything quick or easy about finding gold.

At the end of the train ride, we ended up at Gold Dredge No. 8

where they gave us a gold panning demonstration

and then let us try panning for gold on our own. We all got a bag of dirt, a pan, and a little container to put our findings in.

There were big water troughs set up with benches so that we could pan for gold. We all found gold! All of us! When you’re done panning, you can take your findings into the main building and they’ll weigh if for you and tell you how much your gold is worth. Yup…your gold…you get to keep everything you find. Alex was the luckiest and found $38 worth. In all we found a combined $116 in gold. Not bad, right? After you get your gold weighed, they have a gift shop to roam around. The prices weren’t bad and the selection was good. If you need to do some last minute gift shopping in Fairbanks, this is about the only place in town worth checking out.

On top of all the other awesome at Gold Dredge No. 8, you can actually go into the dredge and look around.

It was old, dirty, and smelly. But it was really neat to look through. With very little imagination, you could picture what it must have been like when the dredge was running.

There were informational signs near each of the dredge stations explaining what you were looking at. Things are always more interesting when you know what it is you’re looking at.

At the end of your short two hour tour, the whole crew of Gold Dredge No 8 lines up outside as you ride the train back to your car. Gold Dredge No 8 is one of our top ten experiences in Alaska.

Just down the road from the dredge, is the Felix Pedro Memorial. Felix Pedro is the guy who first found gold in the Fairbanks area. You’ll learn all about him during the Gold Dredge No 8 tour.

Y’all know we’re foodies. Alaska has been…well…it doesn’t have the best selection of restaurants. We found Bad 2 Da Bone BBQ in Fairbanks and we were skeptical. First of all, it’s in a gas station…and secondly, it’s smoked meat. We walked into one of the cleanest gas station restaurants we’ve ever seen.

It was expensive, but everything in Alaska is. The portions were bigger though.

 I got the loaded fries. You can see them in the photo above. We liked Bad 2 Da Bone so much we went there twice! We were all pleasantly surprised, but when a restaurant’s slogan is “Sauce on the side cause the meat don’t hide”…well, we were hopeful.

There’s a place just outside Fairbanks that you can see the Alaskan Pipeline. You can see it in quite a few places in Alaska running near the road, but this place has informational signs and is designed for people to actually come close and touch it.

We all had to touch it.

One of the locals told us about a place to go that had good views. It’s called SkiLand and it’s just down the road from Gold Dredge No 8. We drove up to it and found, not only great views of the area,

we also found blueberries! There was a couple there when we got there and they told us about the blueberries. They also mentioned that the bears don’t usually visit the area, but the moose do. We didn’t see any wildlife, but we got to taste some wild Alaskan blueberries!

We weren’t the only ones picking berries so we felt pretty safe to wander around.

SkiLand was in pretty bad disrepair. Apparently, they don’t do much business with the ski-lift, but they do really well with the aurora tours during the winter months.

Our first Sunday in Fairbanks we spent an afternoon hitting a couple of “touristy” things just outside of the city. We went to The Knotty Shop because we’d heard it’s one of those places you have to go to. We went (it’s 45 miles from Fairbanks). We looked.

The statues were neat. The inside was a gift shop. I’d already finished all of my souvenir buying so we didn’t buy anything here.

On that same Sunday, we drove through North Pole, Alaska. The street lights looked like candy canes and all the street names had something to do with Christmas.

We stopped at the Santa Clause House where all things Christmas have a home all year. It was a huge gift shop for all things Alaskan Christmas.

It’s pretty easy to find with the 50 ft. Santa out front.

The two little boys took turns sitting in Santa’s chair.

We bought the obligatory Christmas tree ornament.

Fairbanks was the last stop on our Alaskan Summer tour. We found some really cool things here and some really…not so cool things, but Fairbanks should definitely be on everyone’s must visit Alaskan list.

See y’all down the road!

#alaskabound