Alaska Highway to Fairbanks AK

We stayed over for two nights in Tok to rest before traveling northwest toward Fairbanks along the Alaska/Alcan Highway. The Alaska Highway ends at Delta Junction ( the people of Fairbanks proclaim that the Alaska/Alcan Highway ends at Fairbanks at mile 1523).

Just outside Fairbanks is a small town by the name of North Pole. We visited a mega Christmas store which was complete with a cappuccino bar and every type of ornament you could imagine.

When we got to Fairbanks we did the tourist thing as you can see by the picture in front of the statue in the city square. We bought sweat shirts and hats as it is fairly cool here with the temperature being in the mid sixties.

We found a Pioneer Village with replicas of gold mining establishments.
Starting in Whitehorse and continuing through Dawson City to Fairbanks we noticed that many of the stores and houses were painted pastel colours and were trimmed with other pastel shades. We thought that this was to cheer them up throughout the long winter however by reading a tourist book we discovered something different.

The story goes that during the gold rush, house paint was in such demand in the booming town of Dawson that people took anything they could get-including "reject" colours that were not popular elsewhere. Almost every historic Dawson building is pastel.