This device (photo by DosKumaks) placed on log pontoons can scoop fish from the stream without any human intervention. Of course there must be suitable fencing in the river to guide the fish to a narrow channel where this monster is waiting for them. A little bit away from the Tanana are the hot springs at Baker Creek. This miniature town has only 89 inhabitants. I can however count 10 small planes parked at the airport!
Further parking space for sea planes is available on the Baker Creek (photo by Jim Keir). Maybe the hot springs really bring tourists in the town. The Elliot Highway brings also people traveling with cars. We will follow the highway to north-east. There comes a turning with a sign to the town of Minto.
Minto is a remarkable town (photo by JKBrooks85) for indigenous Alaska. First, about 92 % of the townspeople are native Americans and secondly, there live the only Lower Tanana speaking natives in the US. The town itself is located among a cluster of lakes, which form from River Tolovana as it flows on the flatland. From Minto we head back to south-east and soon the Panoramio icons burst to the screen.
The Murphy Dome is a round top hill (image by Ansel Siegenthaler), which used to have an early warning radar station. Today there is only one radar dome and the hill top is a popular sightseeing venue (elevation 885 meters). The clear cut strip in the forest is about 15 kilometers long and it may be just a forestry clearing but obviously it has been used for recreational winter sports as well. The Murphy Dome belongs to the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The borough has a population of nearly 100'000 which is already comparable with our starting point, Oulu Finland.
In a city of this size you could spend days in sightseeing. There is certainly much information available, but for my purposes I will pick just few pictures of the Fairbanks Pioneer Park.
This double feature seem to be miles apart from each other. In fact they are both from the Pioneer Park. The steam train (photo by Dirk Lummerzheim) is from the Tanana Valley Rail Road. Now the narrow gauge train runs in the Park. On the right is a magnificently carved bear (photo by Gary Peplow) advertising the Salmon Bake attraction. When in Alaska we cannot dismiss the great winter scenes, although personally I do not enjoy much those cold and dark days.
Outside the city following the River Chena we find an interesting nature trail. The place is called Angel Rocks.
The image above (by watermola) shows the exposed rocks which seem like there has been a volcano eruption just a week ago. The rock face looks like dough oozing from the earth.
We are about to leave the Alaska and the USA when we approach the Canadian border. From the north-west comes the Yukon river back to our view. Yukon is a much used transport route in this landscape where roads are not very common and especially in wintertime often impassable.
I like this picture (by Eli Shorey) very much because of what it tells of the modern Yukon River. Now that even city people have learnt to enjoy the nature and preserve it for us and the generations to come, the feeling in this image is great.
Next we follow the Yukon a short while upstream to the point, where it crosses the 65th parallel again. There is a bunch of photo icons all depicting the same, puzzling phenomenon.
The image of Mt. Windfall (by reisen0815.de) shows a strange looking hill emitting smoke. The event started in September 2012 and there is no data available about what is the current situation, although it was active at least in 2014. Even the scientists could not agree the cause of the smoke, since it was highly improbable that any real volcanic activity would be happening here. What a delicious topic for Discovery Channel this would make: "Aliens mining earth resources!"
Head full with question marks we turn the nose to east and cross the Canadian border.
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