The Highways Traveled

I had flown to a city in Alaska twice in the past -- Juneau (2017) and Anchorage (2019). This trip was for the remaining city of the three biggest cities in the state: Fairbanks.

ALASKA: Going to Fairbanks made it the most northern place on Earth I have ever been. The streets of Fairbanks are designed with walkers and bikers in mind. The college campus area -- my main reason for being in town -- was to photograph the campus sign for my campus sign photograph collection -- is very nice, especially the Museum of the North. This museum is a MUST SEE for anyone visiting Fairbanks. It is large with informative and interesting displays divided into several galleries including ones that often change. It is very catering to children and their learning. Many people, of all ages, were there on the rainy Tuesday afternoon I visited. It seemed that the most popular exhibit was the ten foot tall bear at the entry on the main gallery -- people took turns posing in front of it for a photograph.
For all three Alaskan cities visited, I only had light rainy weather. On the flight home I sat next to a military guy who lived in several places in Alaska for a total of nine years. He said the best month to visit Alaska for sunshine is May.
When I visited Juneau, the state capital, I found it to be too small to be considered a great town to visit. It is quite isolated since no roads lead in or out of the island where Juneau sits. On the other hand, I really liked being in Anchorage. The same can be said for being in Fairbanks. Both can be reached by highway from the rest of North America although one must go through a long drive in Canada to get there and that route is basically only highway and trees with mountains all around. Decent lodging is difficult to find and GPS is spotty because of satellites being blocked by the curvature of the Earth. Of course cellular phone coverage can be tricky too in such sparsely populated swaths of the northern parts of Alberta and British Columbia as well as the northern Territories.


MISSED VISITING:
--(none)

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

The Bests:

  1. The Museum of the North on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) was much more than I expected, a tour well worth the $16 entry fee.
  2. Getting to the most northern point on Earth that I have ever been. Hawaii is still the westernmost and southernmost points I have ever been while the easternmost point, ironically by name, is East Point on Prince Edward Island, Canada (but hopefully in 2025 my easternmost point becomes St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada).
  3. Finding that Fairbanks is a pretty nice town and makes it easy for walkers and bikers to get around.
  4. So fun to experience the "midnight sun" since, when I was there, it was only a couple of weeks after the longest day of the year, it was daylight for almost 24 hours. A morning person could really enjoy that. A bright sky at 4:00 am made it feel more like it was 8:00 am.
  5. The scenery along the western coasts of Alaska and British Columbia is spectacular with the snow-covered mountains and the numerous lakes and rivers/streams around them, some glaciers in there too. The mountains have countless high-elevation lakes too, often half a dozen around a couple of adjoining mountains. Every once in a while, trails (which appear white from the airplane overhead) are visible on the mountain sides.


The Worsts:

  1. Alaska's light rainy weather every time I have visited the state. I later learned that sunshine is prevalent in May. The day I flew out of Fairbanks at 7:00 am the forecast called for sunshine.

The Totals:




Just to list this as of May 2024: