Thursday, June 30 - Talkeetna

The Alaska Roadhouse serves breakfast and also is a bakery and has rooms.  Everyone sits family style so you don’t have your own table.  It is a great way to meet new people.  We had half servings of sourdough pancakes which overflowed a very large plate.  We both had blueberry and banana pancakes.  Jim paid an extra $2 to have birch syrup with his.  He liked it, but thinks maple syrup is as good.

Talkeetna is a tiny, funky town.  It was easy to walk almost everywhere.  When we first came into town, Ardith was driving and was frustrated that people are constantly walking in the streets.

The townspeople are striving to preserve as many old buildings as possible.

The town is the base for all expeditions to climb Mt. McKinley.  The US government name for the mountain is McKinley, but Alaska's is Denali, the Indian name.  Climbers need to pay $200 and attend an orientation session at the ranger station that is across the street from our motel.  So far this year, over 1,200 people have registered to climb the mountain.  57% of those who have returned reached the summit, a bit better than average.  8 people have died in the attempt thus far.

We walked around the town and visited the Historical Society Museum that is made up of several old buildings including the school, post office and a mining cabin. 

The museum did a nice job of explaining the town’s past and had hundreds of artifacts including those of the town’s history of mining and the railroad.  

 There is a large model of Mt. McKinley and artifacts from climbing history.  

A beautiful necklace was on display that was found in an abandoned cabin, along with other women’s articles.

One of the few touchable things was an old “Dick and Jane” reader.

After touring the museum we took a 2 hour trip on a jet boat.   

We passed under the railroad trestle and went to the place that three rivers converge.  The photos below show the clear line where the water color differs between two of them, the Talkeetna and the Sustina, due to their mineral content.  The third, the Chulitna, means “river of stick and twigs” in Athabascan and is aptly named.

As a special treat, we go to see a bald eagle perched in his tree, watching what was happening in the world around him.  A short time later, we saw a nest with 2 eaglets, but they never had both their head up at once.

We docked at a nature trail that leads to an example of a village that showed how people in the local native tribe, the Dena'ina, would have lived.  One example that we had never seen was a deep pit lined with sticks.  The natives would use something like this to preserve fish  over the summer months.  They would alternate layers of fish  with layers of sticks.  This helped preserve the cold.

The burnt ends of the logs used for the shelter showed how they coped before they had cutting tools, burning wood to length.

Our tour also went to a camp set up to show how trappers lived.  All the items in the cabin in the camp belonged to the founder of the tour boat company as he earned his first money in Alaska.  When he had enough money save from trapping, he bought a boat to transport miners and others in the local rivers. 

There was also a tower used to keep bear and other animals out of provisions.  This technique is still used today.  Our guide did a good job of providing interesting commentary.

The railroad has played an important role in Talkeetna’s history.  It was the regional construction headquarters.  It is still an important means of bringing tourists into town.  This is only one of 4 stops on the Alaska Railroad’s line from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

The weather today was great with temperatures in the upper 60s.  We really haven’t had any bad weather the entire trip.

There is a wooden moose decorating contest that will include a parade on July 4 followed by voting.  A week later, prizes will be awarded.  Money goes to local charities.

If Jim had a chance to vote, he would have picked the one covered in maps.

We ate dinner at a Bistro that was serving Thai food this evening.  We both had chicken Pad Thai which looked and tasted great.  Dessert was white chocolate crème brulee topped with fresh strawberries.

Jim took a walk to the local beach.  Most people were leaving or gone when he arrived at about 8:30.

The evening ended with Jim using the motel owner’s laptop because they have been having WiFi problems throughout the town, but especially at the motel.  Their service provider has been promising callbacks from higher level tech support, but it hasn’t happened.  This meant another 2 days without his laptop being able to get to the internet.