Wrapping up Fairbanks Days, Aug 11-13

Here are parts of a couple of August posts that I made on my other blog just to continue the narrative of my trip.

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Aug 11
My research today was more the book kind, I paid a visit to the Fairbanks Public Library and went through several shelves of books in the "SLED DOG" category. The bad news may be there are an awful lot of them, good, bad and indifferent if not downright ugly! The good news is there does not seem to be anything even close to what I plan to do. I skimmed many, read blurbs and noted who was involved and then made an extensive list to try to get thru inter-library loan and buy a few and start to compile a bibliography. I haven't done serious semi-scholarly writing in a while but I think I still recall how.

I finally located where the museum I wanted to see used to be but they are closed and moving. Not sure where the new site is but may be able to find it and whether or not they are open again. That was frustrating!! I went back to Pioneer Park and rode the little train around the park; seniors only have to pay a buck! I also went thru an art exhibit I had not looked at the first day and chatted with the volunteer who is also a quilter and told me where the fabric and quilt shops were in town.  Did locate one and got two fat quarters with northern lights design in colors that will compliment my planned Alaska Musher quilt. And a pattern for Mary Shield's summer parka. Then I came back to the hostel and have loafed in the grassy quiet back yard since about 3:30. I needed a kind of down day to pull myself together, get some notes down and just veg a little. It has been very hectic. Not sure what the schedule will be for the two last days but I think I have about run out of people to see and even close places to go but I will find something to do for sure.

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Aug 12
I woke up to a drizzle today and it rained fitfully much of the day. Went up to the Museum of the North on the University of Alaska campus. It's one of the few I've visited here that has an admission fee but it is pretty impressive so I guess worth the cost. Even have to pay to park. I do recognize though that it costs plenty to operate and maintain such a facility.

They have a vast, varied and voluminous display of Alaska by region--flora and fauna, native peoples, artifacts and art and history. I took a lot of pictures which they allow. A few I got reflections off glass over displays but most of them were fairly good at first review.

I was especially taken by the basketry, beadwork and varied garments of the different native people.  I guess during the winter, if they were lucky enough to stock up on and cache food for the winter, they had time to do detailed and exquisite work. I was also impressed at similarities in some of the motifs although I do know basic geometrics are used by many in varied and diverse places. And the weavings of some, mostly the Tlingit people I believe, were beautiful too. I'm not sure at once how to incorporate such designs into any of my art and craft projects but I am sure something will occur to me  in time.

I spent close to three hours in the various galleries and displays and my legs got tired before I really saw it all thoroughly. Very impressive and well worth a look IMHO. I did see subtle connections that link the Navajo and Apache people to their distant Athabascan kin. That even extended to a sample Native house at the Pioneer Park that bears a strong resemblance to a traditional hogan with a faceted circular structure and a doorway faced east.

Apparently the Eskimo were the first to use sled dogs--again I recall from anthropology classes reading about eastern and plains tribes in the old US region who used dogs to pull drag-able pole travois to haul their goods. I suspect the women were the ones to tame and train the dogs because otherwise they would have been the beasts of burden. That might be worth mentioning in my book about the lady mushers. They may be carrying on a very old tradition. Yes, men used the sleds to hunt and haul in meat, but I'd lay a bet the women used them when it came time to move camp.

Otherwise there was not much on mushing but a lot on many facets of Alaska and life up here to include the gold rush and building of the railroad, main highway and later the pipeline. There was also a bit about the internment of Japanese and  Aleut people from out on the Aleutian chain and especially on Unalaska where a writer friend of mine lives now. That was kind of a downer and I went on by after a short time; not anything we as Americans can be proud of but in wartime many bad things are and will continue to be done. I'm not sure how to fix that.

The end approaches and I will be glad to be home among familiar things, pet my own puppies and try to sort out all the amazing impressions and experiences I have enjoyed.  But as I keep saying, a part of me is already drawn to a return; there is so much more to see and do and of course more dogs, the actual races and many mushers I have not yet met. Must go to Denali for real and maybe even a little farther north though I am not sure I want to go all the way to the Arctic Circle! But never say never. Also down to the Kenai and perhaps even the far southeast area... I am a little sorry I did not get started on all this this much sooner. Were I twenty years younger... well shoot. But I have been here and I shall, like McArthur, return!!

And below you have the Native house I mentioned, the Antler Arch near the Golden Heart Plaza and First Family stature and the Yukon Quest Headquarters Building. The race starts on even years on the frozen Chena River just behind me where I shot the picture of that traditional sod roofed log cabin.The locals pronounce that with a long e, like Cheena btw.

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Aug 13
This is really a pretty town and fairly easy to get around in. But for the winters which I am sure would take some major adjustments for this desert rat, I could live here. With a solid vehicle with snow tires I could probably even get around most of the time. In the summer it is really lovely with the flowers and is mostly pretty clean and people are mostly friendly too.There are trains--I hear them night and day--the long days of summer are very inviting and inspiring.

I spent more time at the library today and then took a final drive up into the hills to the north east to the area of an old mining camp called Fox. My only real disappointment with the scenery is that the trees are so thick and even on a ridge top there is no view.I am reminded of Kentucky and North Carolina in that regard. You saw my pix of the mountains around the Prince William Sound on which Anchorage sits and Wasilla is just above but here it is a valley and the hills just roll away gradually higher and higher. Not looming and impressive.

So tomorrow I will fly back south and the final days will zip by. I need to pack and ship a couple of boxes by Saturday and maybe I can visit the Wasilla library and see if they have any mushing stuff that Fairbanks lacks. Other than that, not much left to be done. I am a bit tired; it has been hectic and busy but I feel I have made progress, less perhaps than I had hoped or wished but a good start.

Once I get home I will focus on fund raising efforts, taking stock of where I am and what else is needed and then lay out the next stage or two of the program. Of course other things will intervene such as stories to be written and sewing, my exercise classes, and the various normal chores. I'll be a few days getting back into that, I am sure. But I will. And life will go on with its normal joys and sorrows and frustrations and all the rest! But I did it; I set a goal that seemed very pie in the sky and I believed and made it happen!! The "theme" for that book to be is Dream it, Dare it, DO it!!