The entire campground is awake at 6:30 a.m. to the squawking of a megaphone/loudspeaker. Guess who? Our favorite group is having a “sunrise celebration” (The sun set and rose at 4:00 a.m.) Lots of clapping, loud chanting, and hollering. Good morning, everyone! They pack up and leave in the afternoon.

We are parked here for three nights to catch up on the business of life: pay bills, take care of things at home, do laundry, shopping and of course some exploring. We find out there is a fire at the entrance to Denali National Park where we have reservations starting July 4. The Park is shutdown, employees evacuated, our reservations are cancelled. Now we must re-group. While we ponder what to do instead of Denali, we split up our adventures over the days so someone can watch dogs while others go where dogs cannot. John goes to Gold Dredge 8 on Monday, Fran and Vicki go on Tuesday. Gold panning is one of the highlights of our day.

What a machine! FROM THE DREDGE 8 WEBPAGE: Gold Dredge 8 operated in the Goldstream Valley of Fairbanks from 1928 to 1959 and extracted millions of ounces of gold from frozen Ground. Today, Gold Dredge 8 is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and serves as a monument to the hard-working miners who built Fairbanks. 

Excerpts from “The Prospector”, by Robert Service.

I strolled up old Bonanza. The same old moon looked down;

    The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me;

But the cabins all were silent, and the flat, once like a town,

    Was mighty still and lonesome-like to see.

There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan,

    And turning round a bend I heard a roar,

And there a giant gold-ship of the very newest plan

    Was tearing chunks of pay-dirt from the shore.

It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung;

    It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs;

Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung;

    It glared around with fierce electric eyes.

Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more;

    It looked like some great monster in the gloom.

With two to feed its sateless greed, it worked for seven score,

    And I sighed: “Ah, old-time miner, here’s your doom!”

The Alaska pipeline also crosses through the dredge property and we stopped at the Alaska Pipeline Wayside.  The pipeline is supported by “sleds” that have Teflon rails. The Teflon allows the supports to move during earthquakes or other events so the pipeline can flex and bend as needed. The pipeline is 800 miles long and runs from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Valdez in the south. We also learned that through the course of a year the entire length of the pipeline expands and contracts 5 miles in length due to changing temperatures.

Vicki and I visit The Aurora Borealis Lodge on Cleary Summit where Steve and I stayed in February 2022 and saw the Northern Lights. It looks so different without snow.

During our stay we also visit the Interagency Visitor Center to learn local indigenous people’s history in the area and get more info on future adventures:  The Dalton Highway and camping on the Park’s Highway.