August 12, 2018 – Riverboat Discovery, Fairbanks

The Riverboat Discovery tour came highly recommended. We were dubious. We were wrong.

The cruise is a 3 hour tour (we know what tune is going through your head now) down the Chena River.

Although cool and cloudy that day, we chose to sit outside on the top deck.

As we were told many times, the sky is the intrastate highway of Alaska. Many of the airplanes are sea planes capable of taking off and landing on the water. A pilot demonstrated the take off…

… and the landing.

Dog sledding is another way to get around the state. We got to watch a team of dogs work. They love their work and the dogs that didn’t get to participate in the demonstration were clearly disappointed.

This is the turn around point on the cruise.

One of the highlights of the tour was a visit to a recreated Athabascan Indian village. Our tour guides were young Athabascan Indians. Many of them were headed to college after the summer tourist season was over. Their culture survived for over 10,000 years and it was only in the last century that they had contact with Western civilization. Our tour guides show us a traditional coat worn by their ancestors.

As part of the tour we were allowed to explore the village. It had cabins made of spruce logs, a cache for storing supplies, and a salmon fish wheel and drying rack.

The salmon fish wheel and drying rack.

The top deck of our boat.

A modern home on the River.

More beautiful scenery along the River

Another modern home close to the end of the tour. Shortly after this our 3 hours was over.

Cadence says, until next time.