It rained all day yesterday, rained all night - not some gentle rain but a real pour down. Did we sleep? Does a bear pooh in the woods? Not hardly, especially since we’re moving on to another campground tomorrow. Funny, we’ve been RV’ers for a few years now but I still don’t sleep well the night before we move on. Oh, well, I sleep well the night after. But enough about sleep. The rain stopped over night and when we awoke, it was wet out but we didn’t need to don our raincoats to hook up.
A check of Gas Buddy to find the cheapest gas around Fairbanks because we sure knew it wasn’t going to be cheap around Denali and we were on our way to the ‘Great One.’ We passed this roadhouse/gift shop along the way. I’d muse about the name and figure his wife didn’t give him enough and I’d be talking about food and you’d be thinking something else. So, we’ll just leave this alone.
We stopped to look at the views along the highway. At this point, we are riding the ridge of a small mountain range and had views like this on both sides.
Then we stopped in Nenana. Along with a few dozen of our nearest and dearest friends. Seems like this is a rest stop along the way between Denali and Fairbanks. Judging by the line at the door, I’m glad we have our own bathroom in our RV.
We wanted to take a short walk through the town since we read that there were some interesting sights here. First of all is the Famous Nenana Ice Classic where entrants guess when the river would break up and this huge wooden sturcture will fall into the river and float downstream. This tripod is planted 2’ into the river in Nenana, is 300’ from shore and is connected to a clock that stops as the ice goes out. And, yes, you not only have to guess the date but also the time. The prize is no small potatoes - last year it was $300,000. But you have to share with all the others who guessed the same time as you did.
The tripod below was the 1977 tripod and was recovered downstream.
All the entries are recorded and listed in books by year. Here is a table of past books.
Here is a page from the 2015 book and you can see the names of all those who guessed April 23 at 11:11.
We first stopped at the Alaska Railroad Depot which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
We met the young man who had taken it over after his mother died recently. He was fixing it up to look like it did originally and even had made some B&B rooms upstairs - decorated in period style. It was built in 1923 and renovated in 1988 and now houses the Alaska Railroad Museum. Trains will still stop by to pick you up if you call in time. He’s got a lot of antiques in the former baggage room, even this set of luggage.
I ‘almost remember’ luggage like this but only because my mother saved everything (isn’t that a Samsonite in the middle?) Definitely a child of the depression. (But it is a trait she passed on to her daughter who is still wearing clothes she bought years ago - saves on the clothing budget. Now you’ll not have to wonder why I’m wearing the same things in all the blog photos.)
We saw a B&B with some interesting carvings. The burl in the tree trunk is also carved.
We then stopped by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, built in 1905 and still open.
Loved seeing the crayons on one of the pews (no, your eyesight is not going bad, the picture is really blurry. Sorry.) Gary could run his toy car up and down the curved pew arm all through the sermon. Me - I could undress and dress my Nurse Nancy doll and the sermon would be over and we’d be on to the cool part - the hymns.
The church has hand-hewn pews and an altar decorated with Native beaded moose hide.
Check out this beautiful stained glass window.
Next on to the Cultural Center and Gift Shop. Here you can learn about the natives in this area and about the history of the area itself. One section was devoted to St. Marks, another to sled dogging. Another to racing these fast boats.
Note how shallow they are. They carried 3 people, that front person is the Navigator who flung him- or her-self back and forth across the beam of the boat depending up on which curve the pilot wanted.
Nenana is a petty small town with only 553 people and today it seemed fairly quiet. However, it is the hub for tons of tugboat and barge traffic up and down the Tanana (not misspelled - Nenana lies on the Tanana River) River providing goods and services to numerous villages down the river, Tons of fuel, food, cars, heavy equipment, mining equipment, road graders, snowblowers, gifts for relatives, new clothing, heating oil, and other supplies move through Nenana between May and September when the river is ice free to supply the villages throughout the winter. Because the river is shallow and has lots of silt, the barges move about 12 mph down stream and only 5 mph upstream. But they are a life line to the villagers. Here’s a picture of a Ruby Marine Company tug heading down the river.
Here’s Ruby’s Welcome page on their website.
WHAT IS RUBY MARINE?
Ruby Marine was established in 2006 to provide fuel and freight transportation service to the communities, fish camps, and mines along the Yukon, Tanana, Innoko, and Koyukuk rivers. New equipment was designed and built to meet the shallow water requirements of these rivers, capitalizing on the advantages of modern materials and efficient machinery to help keep the cost of business –and the cost to the customer-‐ minimized.
WHERE DOES RUBY MARINE OFFER SERVICES?
Ruby Marine provides seasonal barge service to the communities along the Tanana, Koyukuk, Innoko, and Yukon Rivers from mid May until early October each year. We provide regular service to Tanana, Ruby, Galena, Koyukuk, Huslia, Nulato, Kaltag, Grayling, Anvik, Holy Cross, Shageluk, Russian Mission, Marshall, Pilot Station, St. Mary’s, Mountain Village, Emmonak, Alakanuk, and Nunam Iqua. We offer service to Rampart and Kotlik with sufficient demand, and we provide service to fish camps and mines along the way upon request.
WHEN ARE SERVICES OFFERED?
We are open to receive freight from the first of May until the end of navigation. The navigation season for our service area is dictated by ice. We leave Nenana on the first trip of the year just after the ice clears on the Yukon and typically push ice home on the last trip up the Tanana River. We try to leave Nenana May 15th each year, and plan to be parked in Nenana by the last days of September. However, we have departed Nenana as late as May 30th (2013) and have arrived home as late as October 18th (2009). Call or email to arrange to have your freight or fuel moved as soon as you have the order together; earlier is always better when arranging transport.
Fact for the day: Alaska accounts for 25 percent of the oil produced in the United States.
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