Sunday, 17 Jun, arrive in Seward at 8am where we met Hannah, our land-tour guide. We boarded a motorcoach that took us along the shoreline of Turnagain Arm to Anchorage and to the airport where we got our plane to Fairbanks. As we neared Fairbanks the pilot got a course deviation to fly right over Mt McKinley because the peak was visible. We kept straining to see the mountain on the horizon when all of a sudden, there it was right under the right wing. Awesome!
Monday, 18 Jun, motorcoach to the Goldstream Dredge #8, where we saw how gold dredging was done. We also stopped for a close-up view of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The Alyeska Pipeline transports about 1.15 million bbl. per day from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez; travel time 6.2 days at 5.4 mph. Each month about 40 tankers are loaded at Valdez in Prince William Sound.
Then we stopped at the Chena River Landing to board the sternwheeler Discovery III for a tour of the river. This is the third sternwheeler that the Binkley family has run on the Chena and Tanana rivers—they have been in continuous operation (summers, of course) for 100 years. The boat is equipped with the latest technology including live video feeds from a cameraman on the bridge to the many closed circuit monitors located throughout the boat.
Then we toured the Chena Indian Village where we met Jessie and some of her sled-dogs. In this picture, the dog handler is talking on a remote microphone directly to the live video and sound feed to the boat. Usually, Susan Butcher, the four-time Iditarod winner meets the boat, but she was out of town. We later disembarked in the village for various demonstrations of Athabascan Indian life.
Prior to arriving at the indian village, the boat paused while Dixie explained by remote mike how the indians filleted, smoked and preserved salmon. Since there was also a closeup video feed into the shipboard monitors it was easy to watch Dixie in action. In the river is a salmon trap which can be rotated up after salmon have been caught, then the fish is dumped into a chute and basket to be taken ashore. After the demonstration of filleting a salmon, Dixie jumped into a small boat with an outboard motor and scooted across the river to the Indian village set up for the tourists.
On the left is a picture of Dixie working on a cermonial garment in the indian village. She has one of her garments displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
The picture on the right shows a small bush-plane landing on a short strip in front of the owner's house on the Chena River. He demonstrates take-offs and landings on this very short, gravel landing strip for the benefit of people going by on the boat.
The picture on the left shows the stark contrast between water in the Chena River (clear) and the Tanana River muddied with glacial silt. It is estimated that during the summer months about 100,000 tons of silt moves down the Tanana into the Bearing Strait. The Tanana is about 500 miles long and is the largest glacier fed river in the world.
Tuesday, 19 Jun, motorcoach from the hotel to the Alaska Railroad Depot for our four-hour train ride on the McKinley Explorer to Denali National Park where we stayed in the McKinley Chalets and were treated to an all-you-can eat Cabin Night Dinner featuring salmon, halibut and BBQ ribs with Alaska-style theater entertainment. (The entertainment included a stirring, musical version of "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew" by Robert Service. The performance included some "volunteers" from the audience, including one from our group. It was hysterical. We also discovered the local cyber cafe up the hill and across the street from the hotel. It is a small corner of peace, love and friendship right in the middle of Alaska. We also met a man who brings middle and high school students on ecology tours of Alaska from Michigan. The kids participate in projects and classes that help them understand the fragile and beautiful environment of Alaska.)
Wednesday, 20 Jun, Tundra Wildlife Tour, 6-8 hour bus tour 66 miles to the Eielson Visitor Center, We we saw much of the wildlife that exists in the park. We saw moose lying on the remaining patches of snow to cool off (the weather was quite warm and dry while we were there). We had three sightings of brown (grizzly) bears. We saw Dall sheep high up on the mountains. Near the stream beds and the road we saw a couple of fox families and a grey wolf being followed by a magpie. We also saw bald eagles and other birds of prey. There is only one road into the interior of the park, 90 miles to Kantishna. Anything beyond mile 15 can only be visited in park buses, bycicle or on foot. In the pictures taken from Stony Outlook, the tip of Mt McKinley peeked out from behind the clouds for a minute or two—the picture on the right taken with telephoto.
From an airport in Talkeetna we went with another couple on a 5-place Cessna 
