The Great Northern Adventure, Day 6: Visiting North Pole, Meeting Santa, and Eating Reindeer

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Woke up in Beaver Creek.  Crossed back into Alaska, stopping at the border for some photos.


We stopped at a visitor center, with bathrooms and nice views.




We stopped at yet another Westmark, this time in Tok for a proper lunch.  This one included red snapper, reindeer sausage, chicken, and sweet potato fries.  It really hit the spot.

Back on the road, stopping at Rika's Roadhouse for some strawberry and rhubarb pie and ice cream.

Yet another stop, this time at North Pole, Alaska.  We went to Santa's house, met the man and his reindeer (whose relatives were quietly digesting inside us at the time), and perused the tourist wonderwasteland that is Santa's house.

By the early evening we were at our hotel in Fairbanks: The Westmark on Noble @ 10th Avenue.  We're here for two nights, which is a nice break from all the packing and unpacking.  We said goodbye to our motorcoach driver and handed him some cash somewhere in the neighborhood of the "suggested gratuity" amount of $4/person/day.  (More on tipping later, what a racket.)

We scheduled our first "excursion": the Alaska Salmon Bake in Fairbanks.  We took Dad with us because we knew he'd enjoy it too.  We were picked up in a blue-painted school bus and dropped off at Pioneer Park, where the salmon bake is.

We had all-you-can-eat fire-roasted wild salmon, prime rib, fried cod and halibut, sides, desserts, and drinks.  We ate outside in the dry 80F air.  It was great to just sit outside, eat, and relax.

We walked around Pioneer Park to help digest some of that fantastic food, and caught the 9:20pm school bus back to the Westmark.

This far north, sunset is at 12:20 am and sunrise is at 3:29 am, though it never really gets all that dark in between.  We've never seen anything like it.

The Great Northern Adventure, Day 6: Yukon Do It

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Departed Whitehorse (after putting our luggage out in the hall for someone else to carry to the bus for us again) for another long day on the bus.

In the morning we stopped at Uncommon Journeys Ltd. for a "90 minute demonstrationand tour of our kennel, dog yard and sled dog training facilities at the Homestead.".  We got to meet and play with 55 of their Husky sled dogs,

 and the kids got to play with the new puppies.

Needless to say, they absolutely loved that - the kids and the puppies.  A team was hooked up to an ATV, and we got a little demo on what these dogs can do.  It was pretty impressive.

We stopped to eat lunch in ____ at their community center.  We had sammiches and fruit.  I guess the town made some kind of deal where they supply church luncheon-type food to the HAL tour buses in exchange for $.  It seemed kind of random, but it was nice to get outside and walk around.

We made a few more stops throughout the day, mainly bathroom breaks and photo opps.

I've been able to sleep pretty comfortably on the bus and in the hotels in between stops.  That's one feature of a motorcoach tour aimed at old people: you're never more than a few hours from a proper bathroom (in addition to the improper one on the bus.)

We stopped for the evening in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, at another Westmark.  This hotel has dreadful reviews, but we didn't find it to be that bad considering we were in Canada's equivalent of the Australian Outback.  This one had a dinner show in a large circular outdoor/indoor theater.  We had enjoyed a few C$6 pints in the bar beforehand (Yukon Gold and Chilkoot Lager) as well as a few more during the show.  The show was pretty good, as was the meal. We're far enough north now that it never gets completely dark at night.  Can't imagine what winter is like.

Put the luggage in the hall. . .

The Great Northern Adventure, Day 5: Yukon, Jack

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Today would have been the folks' 47th wedding anniversary.

We woke up docked in Skagway. We went to a meeting in the Vista Lounge (nightclub) where we met the rest of our tour group (#7A) and our tour director, Roslyn Hood.  We disembarked and kicked around Skagway for a few hours, stopping for a crepe, and some salmon-tooth earrings for Jennifer.

We met our train around noon: The White Pass-Yukon Railroad, following the route of the Klondike stampeders of the late 1890s to Fraser, British Columbia.

The ride on the narrow gauge railroad was pretty cool, though mostly foggy.  The geography was dramatic, and changed a lot along the ride.

We had a cursory customs inspection in Fraser, and boarded our bus with driver Parker Anderson.  We drove several hours, stopping in places like Carcross, Yukon Territory.

We're staying at the Westmark, a very budget but clean motel chain.  We were on our own for dinner, so my immediate family ate at a Vietnamese place.  We stopped at the Canadian Superstore (or equivalent) to get some breakfast food for the next day.