Fairbanks is the second or third largest city in Alaska (depending on who you talk to) but with only 32,000 or so people it’s more like a small town. We stayed at Sophie Station Suites, a very nice hotel, nothing fancy but nothing here is according to, Mary, our tour guide.

The next morning we went on a 4-hour riverboat tour. We boarded the DiscoveryIII, a larger version of the original discovery built in 1904. The stern paddle wheel actually drives the boat.

The boat went up the Chena River at about 5 knots. The Chena is a glacial river – its water comes from glacial melt. If the glacial melt is late in melting as is the case this year the river is very shallow. If the glaciers disappear so will, the river.

There was a running commentary through the entire cruise on life in Fairbanks (where temperatures range from 90 in the summer to 70 below in the winter); sled dogs as we passed a large kennel where they are raised and trained; bush pilots (60 percent of Alaskans have pilots licenses).

We stopped at an Athebaskan village where we had demonstrations of their crafts. The fur parkas we really beautiful and there was a moose.

The whole area is covered by a smoky haze from the hundreds of forest fires burning in the area. This part of Alaska was described as an Arctic desert so with everything very dry fires start very easily in areas so remote that firefighters can’t get to them.

After the cruise was finished, we took our bus back into Fairbanks to have lunch. There restaurants there were more like diners but the sandwiches were good. After lunch we walked around the city and as usual, Laura found an art gallery.

Afterward the bus brought us back to the hotel. We took a walks to a nearby Safeway to get snacks for a long trek through Denali National Park tomorrow. We came back to the hotel and had dinner.