Chicken Alaska

 We are headed across the Top of the World highway to Dawson City. First stop is Chicken to explore the town,  its gold dredge and sample delicious cinnamon rolls at the Chicken Creek Cafe where we stayed overnight. 

The chicken sculpture was created by high school 

students from recycled lockers

Other chicken themed destinations  

A beast of a machine

This machine the size of a small building slowly crawled across an Alaskan river valley, its metal buckets plunging into the ground one after another. This is a floating mining machine built to move mountains of gravel in the search for tiny pieces of gold. The dredge floated in a pond of water and moved forward using huge winches and cables. 

The dredges moved at a snails pace. One dredge moved 4.5 miles in 31 years

Our guide is explaining to Amy how pipes were driven

into the ground to melt the permafrost ahead of the dredge.

The generating room

The continuous chain of steel buckets scooped up gravel

 from the riverbed. Bucket after bucket, the material was 

lifted aboard the dredge and dumped into a rotating trommel, 

a large cylindrical screen. 

There were three quarters of an inch holes followed 

by inch holes. Any thing larger was dumped out the 

back of the dredge 

The smaller material was washed out of the trommel 

into the sluice boxes in this secure area. 

Every two weeks a special crew came 

and removed the gold. 

 These levers controlled all the mechanics of the dredge

Below the control room

When it became unprofitable to mine the gold,

the crew just walked away leaving everything in place

The model gives you an idea of 

how they looked in operation

Poker Flat Research Range

The University of Alaska has conducted auroral research since the 1920s. When sounding rockets were developed to study the upper atmosphere, the university decided to build a dedicated launch range. The UAF Geophysical Institute leased 5,132 acres from the State of Alaska, and the facilities at what became Poker Flat Research Range were completed in 1969.  Poker Flat has four launch pads, including two designed for severe weather, and can handle rockets weighing up to 35,000 pounds. The range includes an administrative facility, a concrete blockhouse used as mission control, rocket assembly buildings, a two-story science observatory, and a payload assembly building. Three S-band antennas collect telemetry, while a C-band radar tracks rocket payloads during flight.  More than 1,700 launches have been conducted at Poker Flat, making it an important site for studying Earth’s atmosphere and its interaction with the space environment.

Our guide, kyle

Recovered pay loads. There is a reward if you find any part of

the rocket. All you have to do is report its location. The reward

for the one on the left was $1600.

This is were the rockets are assembled here.

Photo from the internet

Looking the other way

The launch facilities 

The blockhouse

Keyle told us that there are frequent delays that require

adjustment or repair.

It could take a week or more for a launch to take place. 

The launch panel

Seen in the blockhouse

 S-band antennas and the C-band radar 

Photo from the internet

One is not allowed to take photos in the launch building. 

For winter launches the building is heated and the 

rocket is incased in styrofoam. It is mounted horizontally

on a long arm. When ready to launch, the launch building

is moved away and the rocket raised to the proper angle for launch.

The styrofoam is blown off during launch.  

Museum of the North

The University of Alaska Museum of the North, located on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, is a fascinating multidisciplinary museum showcasing Alaska’s natural history, cultural heritage, and art. Its exhibits offer a remarkable look at the state’s wildlife, Native cultures, geology, and diverse artistic traditions.

A friend of Melinda, shown in blue, has a son named Grant who is working on his master’s degree in ornithology. He gave us a fascinating tour of his lab space and a behind-the-scenes look at the research and work that goes into studying birds.

Birds

and more birds

Blue Babe is a famous mummified steppe bison that lived approximately 36,000–50,000 years ago. Miners discovered the frozen carcass near Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1979. Remarkably preserved, Blue Babe bears deep claw marks believed to have been made by an ancient American lion. Its striking blue coloration is caused by vivianite, a mineral that formed in the iron-rich tissues of the animal. This a reproduction. 

In our behind the scenes tour we got to see Blue Babe's actual skull

Beautiful indigenous clothing. 

The water proof jacket is made from animal intestine 

Gorgeous woks of art

This garment made from salmon vertebra 

Leaving the museum we went to U of A's Large Animal Research Station

This is Bret's favorite Musk Ox

and these are his favorite Caribou 

Musk Ox need these massive horns to assert dominance 

when they charge each other at 30 mph 

A muskox’s undercoat is called qiviut. It is eight times warmer than sheep's wool and finer/softer than cashmere. Lacking lanolin, it is hypoallergenic and not itchy. 1-ounce pure qiviut lace yarn averaging $115 to $167.

Wood Bison fur

Wood Bison that are being reintroduced to Alaska 

They are larger than Plains Bison