Well, not quite modern. The city is stuck in some sort of weird time warp I think. It has very few redeeming features worth taking photos of, and the weather is pretty grim, cool, grey drizzly sort of stuff. Summer only lasts 6-8 weeks, so the place is never “dressed for summer”. Most of the time its under snow. Anyhow, we spent one day stuck in our hotel room, it was raining heavily on and off all day, then the hotel had a 7 hour power cut with us stuck up on the 4th floor. The second day we managed to explore a bit.
Just up the road from us is this weird little Museum Room which we never worked up the courage to explore, on peaking through the door it looked more like a very mouldy dusty junk shop - the “Cash for Antlers” signpost amused us!
The main tourist attraction in town is the “Pioneer Village” - a quaint heritage “recreation” of Fairbanks in its early days containing at least a few original log cabins. Problem was it was a Monday - so only half the attractions were open.
We browsed one museum and found this little gem:
Cannabis is legal in Alaska so we found several shops on the main streets freely advertising their wares.
The people are interesting folk. Slow talking, friendly in an offbeat sort of way. Comes from spending 9 months of the year in darkness and off grid to boot! After 2 days we felt like we were blending in a bit, only to have a complete stranger passing in the street say “welcome to Alaska”! Another time I walked to the local grocery store on my own, there was no other pedestrian with 3 blocks when I passed a car attempting to pull out of a disused petrol station driveway bunny-hopping in a learner-driver kind of way. The driver flung open his door and called to me - “can you help me please? I would shake your hand but mine is too greasy (and it was - totally black). Would you sit in my driver seat and pump my brakes for me?
Well, what could I say?! He continued: I need to bleed the brakes, if you could pump the brake pedal for me while I bleed them, I would much appreciate it. It’s a two man job you see.
There was no one else within three blocks - what was I to do?
Well, I did as he asked. I did as he requested a couple of times while he was under the car doing mechanic sort of things. The deed done, He said, thank you so much - much appreciated, and off he drove.
That’s Alaska for you.
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