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End of the line:
I did The Alaska Rail Road from South to North!
Getting to and being in Fairbanks wasn't like the other areas I'd been. I went to Fairbanks for two reasons. One, was to do the whole train route. The other was to do a tour, but the tour had been cancelled. I would have had a better time in Fairbanks, but I was there and extra day at the end of a long trip with no real reason to be there.
So I wandered around and tried to take artsy shots of The Antler Arch:
Also, the government throwing coal and gas propaganda at tourists was a thing.
From Seward to Denali it's very easy to be unaware that the state owns the railroad. It's well run, on time and a very polished experience even in 'adventure class'. Then there is the section from Denali heading north where the train's announcer start going in on the 'clean coal' power plant that we go by. And how 'happy and grateful' Alaskans are for their power company.
What?
Okay, putting 'clean coal' aside for a moment. I am going to assume that I don't need to explain that 'clean coal' is a pile of BS propaganda. A single family has complete, hereditary, vertical and horizontal control of the production of electricity for most of Alaska. They own the coal mines along with the plants.
If a single family has hereditary control of any utility in Oregon, no one in this state would ever say fuck, shit or damn. We would have but one swear word and it would be that family's name. There is no way Alaska 'loves' this family and is 'happy and grateful' for them. I assume they wield a lot of political power because I heard about them for a solid 30 minutes with no escape. The praise heaped on them by the voice over the PA system was slobbering.
Here is a quote from the voice over the PA system about the coal plant: Local schoolchildren call it (the The Dragon.
But that wasn't my last time hearing the words 'clean coal'. The town runs a shuttle from the hotels around the city to try to draw money from tourists passing through to and from the airport. The shuttle driver talks over the bus's PA system about 'clean coal' and how great it is.
Since I was looking for things to do, I went to the visitor's center. They were playing a film explaining the importance of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Also, on the one tour I did the tour guide promised us that, despite the controversy, Alaska was going to drill in ANWR and people needed to accept that.
I don't know how familiar you are with the ANWR controversy, but it's been a fight since 1972 and no, we should not be drilling in ANWR.
Also, in Fairbanks was my second time ever seeing Magats in the wild.
Yeah, I got to 'okay ready to go back to my nice liberal bubble now' pretty quickly.
30 minutes in a speeding metal car I couldn't leave listening to clean coal propaganda. That was bad enough without all the other bullshit.
If they wanted to have a political effect on me from all this 'clean coal' and 'coal mining with no environmental impact' and 'we will drill ANWR' stuff, they did. I become conservative ... in my spending. Instead of putting it into the local economy I saved the last of my trip budget to donate to Elizabeth Warren.
I did do some cool stuff up there, like tour a gold dredge:
Good things: I saw a gold dredge. I panned for gold and got a tiny bit. They have an arch made out of antlers. I tried to take arty pictures of it but I was also super pooped at this point. I kept planning to rest at various points of my trip, but went hiking instead.
Oh, and one more thing. Guess which train nerd has finally been in a Pullman car? Something I've researched a lot and written about? Fairbanks has a pretty cool downtown park with vintage mining equipment rusting in the grass and other stuff. They also have the Harding Car. When the Alaska Railroad was completed, President Harding came up to drive in the final spike. This custom Pullman car carried him.
I took some detail pictures, like how big the back deck was:
Fairbanks has some cool stuff and I am glad I went. I don't mean to sound harsh about the city. I don't really know it from just being there a day. I just ran into a lot of 'throw propaganda at the tourists' stuff while I was there.
Oh and also the sister hotel to my hotel burned down, so my hotel was in chaos. The lobby had American Red Cross blankets and super stressed staff. They'd had to take in all the guests from the other hotel with no notice. There was no shuttle from the rail station, but the shuttle of another hotel picked me up and dropped me off.
Alaska Part 11: The Wrap Up post
I did The Alaska Rail Road from South to North!
Getting to and being in Fairbanks wasn't like the other areas I'd been. I went to Fairbanks for two reasons. One, was to do the whole train route. The other was to do a tour, but the tour had been cancelled. I would have had a better time in Fairbanks, but I was there and extra day at the end of a long trip with no real reason to be there.
So I wandered around and tried to take artsy shots of The Antler Arch:
Also, the government throwing coal and gas propaganda at tourists was a thing.
From Seward to Denali it's very easy to be unaware that the state owns the railroad. It's well run, on time and a very polished experience even in 'adventure class'. Then there is the section from Denali heading north where the train's announcer start going in on the 'clean coal' power plant that we go by. And how 'happy and grateful' Alaskans are for their power company.
What?
Okay, putting 'clean coal' aside for a moment. I am going to assume that I don't need to explain that 'clean coal' is a pile of BS propaganda. A single family has complete, hereditary, vertical and horizontal control of the production of electricity for most of Alaska. They own the coal mines along with the plants.
If a single family has hereditary control of any utility in Oregon, no one in this state would ever say fuck, shit or damn. We would have but one swear word and it would be that family's name. There is no way Alaska 'loves' this family and is 'happy and grateful' for them. I assume they wield a lot of political power because I heard about them for a solid 30 minutes with no escape. The praise heaped on them by the voice over the PA system was slobbering.
Here is a quote from the voice over the PA system about the coal plant: Local schoolchildren call it (the The Dragon.
But that wasn't my last time hearing the words 'clean coal'. The town runs a shuttle from the hotels around the city to try to draw money from tourists passing through to and from the airport. The shuttle driver talks over the bus's PA system about 'clean coal' and how great it is.
Since I was looking for things to do, I went to the visitor's center. They were playing a film explaining the importance of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Also, on the one tour I did the tour guide promised us that, despite the controversy, Alaska was going to drill in ANWR and people needed to accept that.
I don't know how familiar you are with the ANWR controversy, but it's been a fight since 1972 and no, we should not be drilling in ANWR.
Also, in Fairbanks was my second time ever seeing Magats in the wild.
Yeah, I got to 'okay ready to go back to my nice liberal bubble now' pretty quickly.
30 minutes in a speeding metal car I couldn't leave listening to clean coal propaganda. That was bad enough without all the other bullshit.
If they wanted to have a political effect on me from all this 'clean coal' and 'coal mining with no environmental impact' and 'we will drill ANWR' stuff, they did. I become conservative ... in my spending. Instead of putting it into the local economy I saved the last of my trip budget to donate to Elizabeth Warren.
I did do some cool stuff up there, like tour a gold dredge:
Good things: I saw a gold dredge. I panned for gold and got a tiny bit. They have an arch made out of antlers. I tried to take arty pictures of it but I was also super pooped at this point. I kept planning to rest at various points of my trip, but went hiking instead.
Oh, and one more thing. Guess which train nerd has finally been in a Pullman car? Something I've researched a lot and written about? Fairbanks has a pretty cool downtown park with vintage mining equipment rusting in the grass and other stuff. They also have the Harding Car. When the Alaska Railroad was completed, President Harding came up to drive in the final spike. This custom Pullman car carried him.
I took some detail pictures, like how big the back deck was:
Fairbanks has some cool stuff and I am glad I went. I don't mean to sound harsh about the city. I don't really know it from just being there a day. I just ran into a lot of 'throw propaganda at the tourists' stuff while I was there.
Oh and also the sister hotel to my hotel burned down, so my hotel was in chaos. The lobby had American Red Cross blankets and super stressed staff. They'd had to take in all the guests from the other hotel with no notice. There was no shuttle from the rail station, but the shuttle of another hotel picked me up and dropped me off.
Alaska Part 11: The Wrap Up post
