Monday, June 7, 2010

We are going on the DiscoveryIII Paddle wheeler owned by the Binkley family for 5 generally or moose. Daddy and I ate some; very good. Jim Binkley came up here to start hauling freight from the railroad 2400 miles round trip from here to the Bering Sea. This is a 60 year business started on the Tanana and Chena Rivers. His descendants have continued the tradition of the steam wheeler; but now with passengers, too.
In front of the paddle wheeler an Alaskan bush pilot took off and landed 2 times in his sea plane with wheels and floats for us to view. By October 31st, they change the wheels to skis because he has to land on snow and it is -15 below!! We saw the tiny creek that had $6.7 billion of gold in it. The water pipe line is here that travels back to Cripple Creek where the gold was. Now they have turned the mining pump nozzles into electric lights.
Here is a surprising fact- the average age of a Fairbanks inhabitant is 27! Here anything is acceptable in clothing, food, housing styles. There are still some cabins that are built like those a century ago with sod on the roofs that insulate the house when it is cold. It is really strange looking. When they need more room in the cabin they just add another room on. You can tell who has added on. Sometimes the wood is the same kind, but it has aged at differently. Some of the people cut down and strip the timber just like it was down a century ago. The poles that stick out in front of a log cabin are there to hang their winter mammal kills, especially moose. At -40 degrees and 0%humidity, outside is colder than our freezers in wintertime. On the breakfast menu the sausage is elk or moose. Daddy and I tried it; very good! Land costs $100,000 an acre on the rivers and costs 150 a square foot. The log cabins are made of white spruce because they are abundant and they are straight and very tall.
Since it is so cold here they use 2 by 6s instead and have 6 times paned windows for warmth. In the winter the river is completely frozen over and they walk and drive over it all the time. Of course, it is dark for most of the day in winter, so they spend their time in libraries, movies and indoor hockey rinks. This town has the largest swing of temperatures in the world: -70 in winter and 80 - 90 in the summer.
On the trip down the Chena River they took us to an Iditarod dog camp belonging to the late Susan Butcher and her husband. She won the Iditarod 4 years in a row with her dog, Granite. Both are gone now. Susan died of cancer when she was 51 year old.He showed us a puppy just 14 days old and demonstrated how the dogs pull the sled. The lead dog controls the rest of the dogs. The sets of 2 dogs each behind the lead dog are the swing dogs; they supply the power. The 2 dogs just before the sled control the sled, which is very important, too.. These Alaskan Huskies just love to run and as soon as they saw the reins for the sled they all were jumping all around as if saying "Take Me!" They are bred to love running.
The Athabascan Indians lived here in the basin 10,000 years ago and were nomadic moving around to follow the game. In winter they trapped food; summer and spring they fished and fall they hunted. They gathered berries and fruits, but they didn't grow vegetables. These Chena Indians have lived here for 150 years; but a small portion of their culture has changed. Once the settlers came rifles were introduced which made hunting much easier. The Chenas built huts with sod on the roof to insulate and seal the roof. The water in the grass keeps the hut cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Their huts are made of spruce sticks and caribou hides on top. when they are hunting. They do grow vegetables now and their children are educated in Alaska's public schools.
The children spend their summers at their fish camps helping to catch the salmon, drying it for storage for their animals in the winter. They catch the salmon in a fish wheel that dates back 1000s of years, cut them with an ulu with many slits to air dry faster while hanging in the open on a drying rack. After they are dried completely, they go into a smoke building for 2 weeks. This building is on stilts so wild animals don't eat the salmon. From there they are stored in another building on stilts too called a cache - which is French for storage. One dog will eat 1 dehydrated 1 pound chum salmon a day. The sockeye salmon that people eat is not found in this river. They are caught by the ocean.
They trap the red fox, 7 foot long timber wolf, the ferocious wolverine, who is chief of the forest; the lynx (relative of the bobcat), muskrat, marten, mink, beaver and arctic fox. All of those furs they use to make hooded parkas to wear in the winter. They also use the natural oils of the wolverine on their face to prevent frostbite. You need 30 to 40 hides of the muskrat to make the main body of the parka. This fur keeps humans the warmest. The mink is only used as a decoration because the fur is too short and thin. It isn't really warm, only good to -10 degrees. The Marten is used around the face . The ermines are white in the winter and brown the rest of the year. The beaver furs are used for the boots and mittens because they are water repellent. They use the timber wolf's fur for the edge around the face called the sunshine. The parka the girl showed us was absolutely gorgeous with the furs pieced intricately together.
The environment here is extremely harsh. The Chenas put up fences to catch the moose and caribou and corner them for the kill. They use their hides for blankets and eat their meat. The white birch tree is abundant here and they use the bark and babeese they make from the moose to make snowshoes so they can walk on top of the snow. Then when they chase the moose and caribou they won't sink into the snow, but the animal will. They also use the birch tree to make their birch bark canoes. The birch tree has a fungus growing on it that is a natural mosquito repellent and it also will hold a fire for a long time. They get it lit and carry it in a leather bag to another campsite. The women make birch bark baskets in which to cook soup, stews and other foods. To do this they put in the meat and veggies and water with red hot stones to cook the food. The baskets cannot go directly on the fire. This takes a very long time and it has to be constantly stirred.
When they kill a moose they use all of it. The leftover moose shoulder bones from previous years they hit against tree trunks to imitate the sound of a moose rubbing his antlers on the tree. This will attract other moose to the area. They use bow and arrow, club or spear to kill the moose. The women would scrap all of the flesh with a shoulder blade bone; dry it, cut it into strips and weave it into babeese strings to be used for snowshoes. In order to tan the hides the women would soak the hides in a solution of moose brains and water that has been fermented. Then they dry it over a smoke fire to tan the tide. They make clothing out of this hide after they have pounded it to soften it by breaking the fibers. The clothing has beads sewn on it in designs of bluebell and forget-me-no flowers to signify the area where they are from. On a male's coat there would be beaded animals which indicate what animals the Indian has hunted and killed. To decorate further they used caribou hair dyed with berries or whatever they can find that will color it and sew it on; called "caribou tufting".
We saw caribou and reindeer, even with a baby. The female caribou has antlers too, but they are smaller than the males. They lose the antlers after calving. Their fur is white in the winter to blend in with the snow and brown speckled the rest of the year to blend in with the woods. Their fur is hollow which helps them to float when they need to go in the river to escape a predator. Their BIG feet are used to paddle. The Indian name caribou means deer who paws or shovels the ground. The antlers are used by the Japanese as a medicine when it is ground to a powder. Caribou and reindeer meat is delicious and good for you. It does not have the steroids of our beef and is not fatty at all. A baby caribou can walk 1 hour after birth because the herd is constantly on the move and nature isn't friendly to those that fall behind.
The Tanana River is the melt off from a glacier. You can see the silt floating on the river beside the boat. The Indians now grow all sorts of vegetables that will mature in 4 months. They have gigantic rhubarb that they harvest in cords instead of pounds. They cannot grow corn; it takes too long and takes up too much space. With the sun out for 22 hours a day the plants really grow fast. It seems that even the Alaskans that are not native still have gardens in their back yards.
On the way back to dock they gave us a salmon dip on crackers that was really awesome. But it has to be made from smoked salmon, which I can't find in a can at WalMart. They fish the oceans near Ketchikan for the sockeye salmon and hand pack the cans.
We went to the Palace Theatre in the Pioneer Park at night to see the stage show Golden Heart Revue which tells gthe story of the New Frontier ofFairbanks. E.T. Barnette brought his wife in a steamer up here to start a trading station. Then it was only a swamp with thick trees and no people. It was July and they had to build a shelter before October becasue it is below freezing by then. Not long after them came the brothels, miners, lots of saloons and special mens only clubs. The show had very good singers and actors and actresses, and it was a comedy. The Pioneer Village had some of the original cabins from downtown Fairbanks from the early days moved from the downtown to here to all be together to celebrate their heritage.