Many of the information centres in Alaska can be considered a little on the rustic side...
We flew on an 8-seater Navajo Piper from Fairbanks to Coldfoot Camp, a camp for the Alaskan pipeline and a stop-off for the long-distance truckers on the Dalton Highway (made famous by the Iceroad Truckers reality TV series). We sat in the seats behind the pilot, which made Vyv even more nervous, but she hid it well...
The intersection of the Dalton Highway, The Alaskan Pipeline and the Yukon River.
Us and Luke, our pilot.
One of the early Coldfoot buildings.
This the Coldfoot Camp restaurant, cafe, bar, shower block and accommodation .
The Coldfoot Camp is the furthest north you can get a beer in Alaska.
We were then driven by Rachel, a very nice young Morman lady, along the Dalton Highway to cross The Arctic Circle.
When we were there (literally in the middle of nowhere) another couple turned up and I offered to take their photo by the sign, but he had a tripod and said he would do it with the camera's timer record function. A few minutes later he quietly approached me and said he couldn't get the timer to work so could I please take the photos as he was about to go on bended knee and propose to his partner. I was happy to, and she was happy too. She said yes.
Rachel then drove us (just us, tourism was a bit down so we were her only passengers) the 6 hours down the Dalton Highway back to Fairbanks, visiting various locations on the way back. It is a hair-raising road and I am glad we decided not to drive it ourselves. Such a rough road. Mostly potholes surrounded by patches of gravel.
We had fun though and spent the time in-between stops sharing our life-stories.
This gift shop sits alongside a bridge on the highway that goes over the Yukon River. The lady that runs it makes jewellery and sells it here. She lives with her husband up river in a house with no running water or electricity and takes a little boat each day to open her store.
We got back to Fairbanks about 12.30am and we saw our first sunset since we have been here. It may look like it is getting quite dark but it really wasn't. The sun went down then it just seemed to get light again.
