Downtown Fairbanks and Visitors Centre

The Regency Fairbanks Hotel where we are staying is a fairly large hotel that feels a bi like a ghost town at the moment as the tourist season is coming to an end. The day staff are lovely, the room comfy, there is a guest laundry, a basic breakfast is provided and we get to see a moose every time we go down into the lobby area? Just a shame he was someone’s trophy and his head is now mounted on the wall. The hotel is also within easy walking distance of downtown so many boxes have been ticked for our last accommodation in Alaska.
Fairbanks is flat so walking is easy. And the hotel is in a good spot but only if you walk in the right direction around roadworks. No we didn’t go the right way and we saw a bit more of Fairbanks than we had expected. We did, however, find where we went wrong so that we don’t do it again!
The Visitors Centre is positioned in the park on the banks of the Chena River. It houses a museum which was interesting and they run films on various aspects of Alaska and life in Alaska. We watched a documentary about Richard (Dick) Proenneke - Alone in the Wilderness. It was worth the sit- an amazing story about a man living alone in the wilderness in a cabin that he built on his own. The documentary was put together from his diaries and the film that he took of himself building this cabin. Well worth watching. Everything was made the traditional way- no nails. He made all of his furniture and most of his utensils. He lived alone for around 30 years and, apart from the occasional float plane load of basic supplies, he was self-sufficient, living completely off grid. At 82 the extreme cold and hard physical activity were getting too much for him and he moved to California to live with his brother until he died three years later.Read more