Fairbanks: Museum of the North

For our first day in Alaska, we got oriented by spending the day at a really great museum run by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. The scope spanned from natural history (lots of taxidermy animals), cultural heritage (indigenous, gold rush, etc.), more recent history (WWII occupation of the Aleutian chain and oil pipeline) and art—both contemporary and historical.

There were two films, one on the science behind the aurora borealis and one on bowhead whales. They are strange-looking creatures. Their head is 1/3 the length of their body. The bowhead skeleton in the photo was just put in place just a week before we arrived.

In the late afternoon we strolled around the very small and quiet city of Fairbanks. Later we had the best-tasting salmon and halibut for dinner (outdoors in the bright sunshine at 7pm).Read more